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Twenty years ago, our message was quite simple. Today, life is getting more complex and there

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will be no universal solution.

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We were very strong in program communications when the tools available to us were not as

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powerful and strong as they are today. We need to sharpen our communications and advocacy

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tools.

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One of the big weaknesses in the field of program communications, behavior change, social

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change, is that we've been very weak and very poor at evaluating what the real objectives

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were and whether they've been achieved or not.

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It is obscene and unacceptable in a world where we can go to the moon, where we can

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do such amazing wonders and we cannot save the lives of children. Do we communicate to

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people's hearts or do we only communicate to people's heads? We need both. Somehow

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in our communications, we have not been reaching out to the heart.

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UNICEF's essential role is often one of bridging between different communities, sometimes different

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centuries, urban and rural, different levels of knowledge, and we create the abilities

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of people of different walks of life to access similar information.

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There is so much opportunity and interest in this area. No organization is as well placed

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as this organization to take it forward.

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We have to talk to not only program communication officers, but communication officers. We have

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to talk to representatives, senior program officers, and project officers. In fact, everybody

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in the organization has a role to play in that.

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One of the things that I've learned in the last five years in India is that it's never

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about the message. It's really about the messenger. Who is the person who's doing the talking

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with whom? That process, that dialogue, that discourse is the most important thing.

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We work with NGOs who are working with family members, who are talking with children, and

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when you see the dynamism of children who understand what needs to happen, their discussion

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with each other, with their teachers and with their families, you begin to see things happening

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differently.

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What we're looking for, perhaps, is something to do with people's attitudes changing and

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their behavior changing. So what is it that we can do to trigger that?

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We've got to show that through communication you can get better results. It's not by prescribing

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a behavior, but by creating opportunities for people to discuss this amongst themselves,

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to come up with their own solution.

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It takes people to innovate. It takes people to make change. Program communication works

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by harnessing the power, the emotion, and the will.

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The potential is endless. Now, if UNICEF begins to marshal our power of communications to

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influence policy, to cultivate partnerships, and to generate, especially, children's and

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young people's participation, if we become good at that, we can do an enormous lot for

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children and humanity.

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I don't want commitment from program communication officers. I want commitment from the whole

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organization. I want everyone to believe that this is UNICEF.

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www.unicef.org