The word strategic communication seems to be a buzzword these days, it is widely used and has variety of explanation. According to the publication "Defining Strategic Communication,"
"strategic communication" is "the purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfil its mission."34 The purposeful use of communication makes it "strategic." The authors elaborate that: "Six relevant disciplines are involved in the development, implementation, and assessment
34 HALLAHAN et al., (2007): Defining Strategic Communication. In International Journal of Strategic Communication. Volume 1. Issue 1. Taylor & Francis.
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of communications by organizations: management, marketing, public relations, technical communication, political communication, and information/social marketing campaigns."
In this book strategic communication means that communication (in the widest sense from listening, understanding, messaging and entering into a dialogue) is a strategically used tool to engage colleagues, partners and other stakeholders to design and deliver strategic actions to achieve the best possible result.
Managing water resources means managing people to make water resources used and maintained sustainably.
For experts aiming at achieving integrated, sustainable water resource management, the following competencies, besides the professional management and technical knowledge and skills, are counted as key assets:
strategic and systemic thinking – being able to identify the scope of the action;
visioning, planning the required change for sustainable water management – including the bio-physical and socio-cultural environment, like natural and built infrastructures, decision making processes, maintaining processes etc.;
identifying stakeholders – organisations, sectors with specific interest as well as individuals who are affected (several times with limited interest enforcement capacity);
knowing how the people - they have work with - learn, what motivates them, how do they change, their history, beliefs etc;
knowing how to use different communication tools – knowing the advantages, benefits and barriers of different communication tools and channels.
10. Figure Comparison of traditional and strategic approach of communication
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Key questions for strategic communication
Who are the targets of our communication efforts ? (internal and external targets)
What is the purpose of our communication efforts? What kind of change is sought via the communication action? What outcomes do we want to reach? Do we want our target audience
to know they did not know before or were not aware of of to understand
to do, not to do or do it differently?
How to engage, motivate them? What is their interest, value? (from history, traditions, religion, because of the present situation)
What is the best channel/media to reach, engage them? Do they read?
What do they watch, listen, whom do they follow whom do they trust?
What is the key message for them? By whom, what style?
What is our timeframe? (It is of strategic importance throughout the process, from the planning stage up to the evaluation, but there are certain occasions when the communication does or doesn’t reach the targeted audience.)
Participation in planning and management
Participatory decision-making is not only desired and demanded by citizens who wish to play a more active role in the governance of their society. Regional, national and local
governments, development agencies and NGOs, scientists and companies are also
increasingly eager to reap the benefits of actively engaging in decision-making processes diverse
perspectives and those who will be affected by policies.
Effective and meaningful public involvement is seen as essential to:
enable high quality and democratic governance
strengthen civil capacity
develop and deliver programmes, projects effectively and efficiently
build public confidence and trust in decisions and actions
generate a greater understanding of public issues, concerns, priorities and solutions
build broader support for programmes and initiatives
increase mutual learning through the sharing of information, data and experiences
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ensure that decisions and policies incorporate knowledge and expertise that otherwise might be overlooked
reflect a wider range of public concerns and values in decision-making
rapidly identify possible controversial aspects of an issue and help bring together different points of view to
achieve consensus in a collaborative manner.
A participatory approach advocates actively involving ‘the public’ in decision-making processes, whereby the relevant ‘public’ depends upon the topic being addressed. The
“public” can be for example
average citizens who are using water, depending on its availability, quality;
representatives of different sectors who are depending on water (food and drink industry, energy, health, agriculture, tourism, environmental sector, sometimes insurance companies
…);
experts (researchers, engineers, conservationists, physicians, educators…) members of local, regional, national governments.
Policy or project processes can be seen as a three-step cycle of planning, implementation and evaluation, whereby a participatory approach may be used in all of these steps.
Distinctions have been made between levels of participation, depending upon whether one’s objective is:
transmitting information (unidirectional)
consultation (bi-directional, but the consulted party frames the issue)
active participation: based on a partnership in which citizens, stakeholders, experts and/or politicians actively
engage in (policy) debate.
All parties involved can frame the issue to a greater or lesser extent.
The contents of this toolkit refer to active participation. However, it should be noted that the level of participation is a continuum and methods vary in the degree to which they engage participants in framing the questions and issues and in designing the procedures.
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