Africa: When Information is Health

[Guest guest]

Africa: When Information is Health

The East African (Nairobi)

COLUMN

October 30, 2006

Posted to the web October 30, 2006

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

Nairobi

During the recent political crisis in Nepal, the constitution was

suspended - together with its the guarantees of freedom of

expression. The 50 or so community radio stations that had come into

being, reaching an estimated 65 per cent of the country, were

ordered to suspend their newscasts and broadcast only music.

This did not stop the newscasters from finding creative ways to

continue to let citizens know what was going on. " We were singing

the news, " says Raghu Mainali, vice president of the World

Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.

In Kenya, before the former government finally liberalised the

airwaves, there was frequent talk about transmitting news in from

just outside of Kenyan territorial waters.

Information is power. But is it? How much of any change achieved can

be attributed to communications in isolation? Especially given that

communications is always part of broader interventions. How do we

accurately measure the contribution of communication to development

and democracy?

These were among questions posed during last week's World Congress

on Communication for Development, jointly hosted by the Food and

Agricultural Organisation and the World Bank.

Money talks. But money is not the only measure of development. And

it is in health that the value of communications has most accurately

been tracked. The basic hygiene and sanitation campaigns of the

1970s and the family planning and polio immunisation campaigns of

the 1980s come most readily to mind. Successful health outcomes were

achieved with simple messages, even if they were top-down, based on

what epidemiologists and other healthcare professionals had

predetermined was " good " for us.

BUT CURRENT HEALTHCARE Challenges are far more complex. Information

may lead to attitude change without behaviour change. Nothing shows

this more clearly than HIV/Aids. If earlier messaging about

Abstaining, Being faithful and using Condoms (ABC) had limited

impact, more current messaging - backed by American funding - around

Abstaining is having even less impact. Who is being spoken to? With

what assumptions?

Senator Barack Obama is, of course, a Democrat - not a Republican

party to the current American position on HIV/Aids funding. But when

he urged condom-use and voluntary HIV-testing as prevention measures

in his recent visit to South Africa, meaning to be helpful, he was

also unhelpful.

African women, the most affected by HIV, are also the least likely

to be able to consistently insist on condom-use in a context where

transactional sex and sexual violence are so prevalent, for example.

And dismissing the role of traditional healers in managing the

pandemic is wrong in a situation where over 80 per cent of sub-

Saharan African's first source of primary healthcare is a

traditional healer.

MANY TRADITIONAL HEALERS ARE, in fact, quite modest and rational

about HIV/Aids. " I do not know about a virus, " said a Ugandan

healer, " But I do know about helping with the symptoms presented by

my patients. " In other word, his contribution is in boosting basic

immunity and helping to manage the symptomatology of Aids.

Participatory approaches must see target beneficiaries not as

objects but as subjects, holding their own sets of rational and

rationalised information. Meaning that communication must be a

respectfully negotiated process.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is a Political Scientist based in Nairobi.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200610301187.html

[Guest guest]

Africa: When Information is Health

The East African (Nairobi)

COLUMN

October 30, 2006

Posted to the web October 30, 2006

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

Nairobi

During the recent political crisis in Nepal, the constitution was

suspended - together with its the guarantees of freedom of

expression. The 50 or so community radio stations that had come into

being, reaching an estimated 65 per cent of the country, were

ordered to suspend their newscasts and broadcast only music.

This did not stop the newscasters from finding creative ways to

continue to let citizens know what was going on. " We were singing

the news, " says Raghu Mainali, vice president of the World

Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.

In Kenya, before the former government finally liberalised the

airwaves, there was frequent talk about transmitting news in from

just outside of Kenyan territorial waters.

Information is power. But is it? How much of any change achieved can

be attributed to communications in isolation? Especially given that

communications is always part of broader interventions. How do we

accurately measure the contribution of communication to development

and democracy?

These were among questions posed during last week's World Congress

on Communication for Development, jointly hosted by the Food and

Agricultural Organisation and the World Bank.

Money talks. But money is not the only measure of development. And

it is in health that the value of communications has most accurately

been tracked. The basic hygiene and sanitation campaigns of the

1970s and the family planning and polio immunisation campaigns of

the 1980s come most readily to mind. Successful health outcomes were

achieved with simple messages, even if they were top-down, based on

what epidemiologists and other healthcare professionals had

predetermined was " good " for us.

BUT CURRENT HEALTHCARE Challenges are far more complex. Information

may lead to attitude change without behaviour change. Nothing shows

this more clearly than HIV/Aids. If earlier messaging about

Abstaining, Being faithful and using Condoms (ABC) had limited

impact, more current messaging - backed by American funding - around

Abstaining is having even less impact. Who is being spoken to? With

what assumptions?

Senator Barack Obama is, of course, a Democrat - not a Republican

party to the current American position on HIV/Aids funding. But when

he urged condom-use and voluntary HIV-testing as prevention measures

in his recent visit to South Africa, meaning to be helpful, he was

also unhelpful.

African women, the most affected by HIV, are also the least likely

to be able to consistently insist on condom-use in a context where

transactional sex and sexual violence are so prevalent, for example.

And dismissing the role of traditional healers in managing the

pandemic is wrong in a situation where over 80 per cent of sub-

Saharan African's first source of primary healthcare is a

traditional healer.

MANY TRADITIONAL HEALERS ARE, in fact, quite modest and rational

about HIV/Aids. " I do not know about a virus, " said a Ugandan

healer, " But I do know about helping with the symptoms presented by

my patients. " In other word, his contribution is in boosting basic

immunity and helping to manage the symptomatology of Aids.

Participatory approaches must see target beneficiaries not as

objects but as subjects, holding their own sets of rational and

rationalised information. Meaning that communication must be a

respectfully negotiated process.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is a Political Scientist based in Nairobi.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200610301187.html