Nowadays, compelling issues such as climate change and food security mean that planned communication activities are required in the process of social learning and adaptive livelihoods. With this in mind, the IAMCR pre-conference event which took place on 14 July, 2014, in Hyderabad, India, focused on communication as a means to drive sustainable development in the rural sector.
The session, titled Communication for Sustainable Rural Development and Social Change gave special attention to mainstreaming communication in rural development policies. Wageningen University and the Participatory Communication Research section of the IAMCR, in cooperation with Digital Green in India, the Universities of Queensland, Reading, Guelph and Hong Kong (CityU) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) joined in on the discussion.
Participants made an inventory of current issues and concerns in the field of communication for sustainable rural development and social change, including:
- Governance, Policy and Participation
- Evaluation
- ICTs and Media Convergence
- Diversity and Intercultural Communication
- Paradigms, Theories, Research and Training
- Climate Change
Mario Acunzo of the FAO Office for Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development spoke of rural communication services, their institutionalization for rural development, governance and social change, their contribution to advance family farming and farmers’ participation in policy processes. He also presented Collaborative Change Communication – CCComDev as part of the current integrated efforts to upgrade communication capacity of rural actors which are being carried out by FAO. Among these were also mentioned the FAO-AMARC regional ComDev networks YenKasa Africa, OndaRural and ComDev Asia and the publication of ComDev resources such as the Communication for Rural Development Sourcebook.
The topics covered were welcomed with great interest. A summative report is being drafted and will be shared here shortly.