Communications in Development Cooperation Should Be More than Information Delivery

In development cooperation, particularly in the area of communications, there is a prevalent tendency to treat communication as merely a tool and information as its content substance. This analytical separation—viewing communication as a means and information as the sole objective in and of itself—overlooks an important possible synthesis. The junction where communication techniques meet substantive information is where real impact happens, and this junction is often ignored or underappreciated.

Communications and Information: Two Sides of the Same Coin

In development cooperation, particularly in home-bound efforts aimed at taxpayers in donor countries (not so much when addressing underdevelopment in partner countries which is not my focus here), communications is frequently reduced to technology—the tools, platforms, and techniques of disseminating information. Meanwhile, the information being shared is viewed as the substance. But this division fails to account for the fact that the true power of communication comes to light when one makes these two work together.

At the intersection of the communication process and the substance of information lies something critical: building trust, creating shared understanding, and even inspiring action. This middle ground isn't purely about technique, nor is it about raw information. It’s where relationships are built, trust is earned, and shared visions take root.

The Misstep of Information Overload

Too often, development cooperation efforts focus on delivering vast amounts of information, believing that by merely increasing the quantity, we can drive buy-in or even create change. This ignores the central role of communication in fostering trust and relationships. Information alone doesn't drive buy-in or change; it is how we communicate it and what we do at that critical juncture between information and action that really matters.

For example, in areas like agriculture and food security, we often flood stakeholders with information—statistics, project updates, reports—without considering the deeper responsibility we have in how this communication affects the recipients. Are we building a mentality of responsibility and engagement? Or are we overwhelming them with facts and figures that don’t inspire action?

The Nutritional Value of Information: Empty Calories vs. Nourishing Content

To expand on the metaphor of nutrition, it’s not just about overloading people with information, but also the quality of that information. In the same way that cheap, processed food may fill you up but leave you nutritionally deprived, we often push cheap, easy-to-consume information onto our stakeholders. This “nutritionally low” content is easy to digest but fails to nourish their understanding or prompt them to meaningful action.

Instead of offering rich, actionable insights that could lead to transformative change, we’re often giving them quick bites of information that don’t lead anywhere. These shallow, surface-level communications might be easier for us to produce and distribute, but they don’t equip the audience with the deeper understanding or motivation needed to make a difference. Okay, we would need to start contemplating what kind of new role our reader has in our model, other than agreeing to how project spent their money, in terms of home-bound communication that is.

Making it Actionable

• Narrative-based Storytelling: Instead of bombarding taxpayers with reports and statistics, embed key messages within personal stories. Share specific success stories about a farmer whose life has improved due to a food security project or a family whose livelihood has been transformed by new agricultural techniques. Emotional storytelling engages people on a human level, fostering trust and making them care about the impact. Hint: This might be difficult, but don't just tell positive stories. Your aim is to raise your credibility. Add some really tough failures.
• Use Interactive Visuals: Infographics, interactive maps, or video testimonials can turn dry statistics into compelling, easily digestible content. For example, a visual showing the before-and-after impact of a development project in a rural village can communicate the tangible benefits more effectively than a lengthy report.
• Tailored Messaging: Different stakeholders have different interests. Segment your audience and tailor your communication to what they care most about. Taxpayers in donor countries may be more concerned about transparency, efficiency, and measurable impact, while policymakers might prioritize long-term outcomes. Providing targeted, relevant information increases engagement.

Communicating Without Purpose Risks Mental Obesity

Let’s take the nutrition analogy even another step further. If you overeat junk food, you become overweight. If you don’t eat enough nutritious food, you lack longer-term energy. In the same way, if we overload recipients with nutritionally low information—without giving them actionable steps or meaningful context—they become mentally sluggish and unmotivated.

By bombarding people with updates and achievements from our projects, we’re pushing them into a passive role—digesting but not acting. We're not providing them with the tools to take that information and transform it into something meaningful in their own contexts. It’s like telling someone about the benefits of exercise without ever showing them how to lift the weights.

Making it Actionable

• Calls to Action: Every piece of communication should have a clear, actionable step. For home-bound communications, this might be encouraging taxpayers to sign up for newsletters, attend events, or follow the project’s progress on social media. Engaging your audience through actions makes them feel involved rather than passive recipients of information.
• Create Feedback Loops: Let your audience engage with the project directly. Offer ways for taxpayers to ask questions or provide feedback on how funds are being used. This could be through Q&A sessions, surveys, or even virtual project tours where taxpayers can witness the progress firsthand. Giving them a voice creates a stronger sense of connection and accountability.

Building Trust and Inspiring Action: The Real Purpose of Communication

The best communication efforts don’t just inform—they inspire. They build trust, engage stakeholders in meaningful ways, and make people feel empowered to act. Unfortunately, in development cooperation, we often stop short. Instead of telling people how they can act, we focus on talking about how we've talked about action. It’s a feedback loop of meta-communication that leaves people feeling disconnected from the real-world outcomes they can influence.

To break this cycle, we need to reflect more on that middle space—the juncture where communication and substance meet. This is where trust is built, where personal responsibility and engagement grow. If we focus solely on the technical aspect of communication—how we distribute information—we miss the opportunity to create long-lasting impact.

Making it Actionable

• Show Impact in Real Time: Consider offering live updates or progress reports on projects as they unfold. This could be through social media or dedicated project dashboards. By keeping people informed in real time, you maintain their interest and trust in the project’s ongoing progress. The might even get the feeling that they could change the course of project, in theory.
• Engage through Transparency: Transparency builds trust. Provide clear breakdowns of how funds are spent, and use storytelling to connect these expenditures to real outcomes. A “day in the life” feature that follows how a single donor’s contribution helped a community can create personal connections with the cause. Remember though: it is tone that makes the music here, the personal side not the clean cut information.

The Danger of Complacency in Communication

In the same way that muscles atrophy when they aren’t exercised, so too does the vitality of a project when communication stagnates. If we become complacent in our communication approach, if we stop pushing ourselves to develop both personally and professionally within the project, the project itself starts to weaken. And when communication becomes stagnant, it’s not just the project that suffers, but the entire network of stakeholders involved.

The project becomes a “mentally fat” entity, bloated with self-congratulatory updates but lacking in real, meaningful engagement. Communication must evolve to meet the needs of the project and its stakeholders—not just in terms of technology, but in terms of how it fosters action, trust, and long-term development goals.

Creating Action-Oriented Communications

In development cooperation feeding information about how great your project is doing without engaging people to take action is making them mentally obese. They are receiving information but aren’t inspired or equipped to do anything with it. To create change, we need to focus on the intersection between communication techniques and substantive information—the juncture where trust, responsibility, and action lie.

Ultimately, home-bound communications in development cooperation isn’t just about informing—it’s about building relationships, fostering trust, and inspiring meaningful, sustainable action. To achieve this, we need to constantly reflect on and refine our approach to communication, ensuring that it empowers and engages rather than overwhelms and disengages.