In this section...
- Overview
- Core Concepts
- Working with the Media
- Media Development
- UNDP Web Presence
- So You Want to Produce a Publication…
- Special Events
- Public Service Announcements
- Advocating for UNDP
- Social Media
- Public Inquiries
- How to Conduct a Campaign
- Showcasing Partnerships
- Writing for UNDP
- Translations
- Graphic Design and Applying the UNDP Logo
- Photography
- Video and Documentaries
- Procurement for Communications
- Tools
- Best Practices
- Templates/Photos
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Reaching the Outside World
Showcasing Partnerships
Forming and maintaining partnerships is essential to achieving UNDP’s mission of helping to unleash capacities for human development. Globally, regionally and nationally, common UNDP partners include governments, donors, other UN agencies, NGOs and the private sector. Strategic communications on a variety of fronts can help strengthen these links and the development programmes that result.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (second from right) launches the MDG Monitor - an on-line resource that tracks real-time worldwide progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - during a press conference on 1 November 2007 at UN HQ in New York. The MDG Monitor was created by UNDP in partnership with the Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Relief Web of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Funding and in-kind support were provided by Google and Cisco. Next to the Secretary-General are from left to right: Michael T. Jones, Chief Technologist for Google Earth and Maps; Kemal Dervis, UNDP Administrator; and Carlos Dominguez, Senior Vice-President of Cisco Systems. Photo: Eskinder Debebe/UN
Communications should be built into the process of consultation and consensus
that shapes all partnerships, starting with initial proposals to work together,
and expanding into communications activities that can best support the work
at hand.
Different partners may have different communications needs, particularly related
to the degree of their visibility, because any partnership can be viewed as
a public and political statement. These differences should be carefully considered
and addressed from the beginning. Some UNDP partners may not wish to be publicly
identified, such as those governments that prefer not to be openly associated
with international organizations. Other partners have clearly stated requirements.
The European Commission, for example, has strict guidelines on communications related
to its projects. To learn more about UN communication for EC-funded projects, please view the Joint Visibility Guidelines for EC-UN Actions in the Field.
In some circumstances, UNDP itself may want to work with certain partners on a project, but the nature of the final product requires that UNDP project an image of neutrality and independence. A report critical of a development policy might best be published under only UNDP’s name, even if an array of partners is acknowledged. Some partners are not appropriate for UNDP under any terms, such as alcohol and tobacco producers. In other cases, deliberately emphasizing partnerships can build an image of mutual consent and credibility, demonstrating that multiple organizations representing different constituencies have all agreed on the importance of a given issue.
UNDP also needs to highlight partnerships in the context of UN reform and changes in international development assistance. Close partnerships today are seen as intrinsic to the management of limited development resources, human and financial. It may not always be enough just to execute a programme through a partnership, however. You may also need to communicate to the outside world how doing so is producing better results and deploying resources more effectively and efficiently. This generates support not just for the programme, but for UNDP as a development organization.
Partnerships generally involve three basic communications activities:
For specific guidance on other initiatives, see the relevant parts of this toolkit. Another important guide is the online Resource Mobilization Toolkit (being updated).
Proposals are where many partnerships begin. They are the place to make your case for why a given partnership is relevant, important to the issues at stake, and beneficial to the people and organizations involved. Even proposals going to other development organizations, where insider development language may be well understood, should put a premium on being straightforward, concise and as free of acronyms and jargon as possible. Proposals should ideally start with a “peg” – an initial paragraph or even compelling sentence that immediately interests the potential partner enough to keep reading.
Since all partnerships involve consensus, it is critical to understand not just what UNDP wants to say, but what key messages the potential partner might be interested in hearing. Presenting specific, well-researched scenarios shows you are knowledgeable and prepared, and have considered various options that suit the needs of all parties.
The Resource Mobilization Toolkit offers a list to walk you through the
steps of preparing a project proposal (being updated), as well as a section
on presentations (being updated). See also the toolkit’s core
concepts on positioning (being updated). A more general framework is
issue-action-impact,
discussed in Reaching
the Outside World. With this, you explain why an issue is important, what
the partnership can do, and how it can make a difference.
This simple but effective structure can also be used as a broad outline for
progress reports during or after a partnership. While donor reports in particular
are often considered an extra task tacked on to the end of a project, they
are a critical avenue of communications with the people who make major contributions
to UNDP. They should be well-produced and delivered on time, with financial
information verified with headquarters. Past experience has shown that the
failure to present high-quality reports, even for non-core projects, has negatively
affected UNDP’s core resources.
Partnership reports should be seen as opportunities not only to assess the validity and impact of a working arrangement, but also to lay the groundwork for future cooperation. Well-done reports communicate the willingness to be transparent and accountable for results.
Information Materials and Logos
Many partnerships involve the production of information materials—press releases, reports, websites, correspondence on joint letterheads, and so on. For advocacy projects, producing these materials may be the main focus. Other kinds of projects can use them as ancillary activities to mobilize public involvement, raise awareness, underscore the joint support behind a programme, and so on. A communications strategy dedicated to a particular partnership can map the different options.
Because many information products are openly available for public scrutiny, partners should agree on basic terms in the cooperation agreement, such as the need to jointly prepare key messages, have cross-references on websites, or print stationary indicating that one agency is financing another.
One particular issue involves the placement of logos, including whose logos will be used, their size and how they will be positioned. Partners may have legitimate reasons for not wanting their logo to appear at all. This extends to cases where UNDP may be assisting an NGO working on a politically sensitive cause. Joint UN products can use the UN logo instead of individual agency logos. However, if a UN country team decides to maintain individual logos, they should be placed in alphabetical order.
UNDP itself may not always produce information materials in a partnership. But if it provides data, analysis or ideas not available elsewhere, UNDP should always be cited as the source. This rule applies even to situations where UNDP encourages national partners to freely use information from existing global and national UNDP reports and other resources. Another small but cumulatively important step to bolster UNDP’s visibility comes from ensuring that all abstracts, brochures, imprints and library references to UNDP publications mention the UNDP name.
Different partners may have different communications needs, particularly related to the degree of their visibility, because any partnership can be viewed as a public and political statement.
The media is sometimes referred to as a development partner, but this notion needs to be handled with care. In many situations, UNDP needs to reach out and use the media, and even help develop its capacity, while maintaining an appropriate distance. Not doing so can result in a potentially injurious public opinion that UNDP is trying to exert influence over the media and, by extension, the political process. Other issues arise if the media is heavily biased or controlled, such as the risk of being perceived as ‘siding’ with a given regime. For more information, see the section of this toolkit on ethical guidelines for working with journalists.
That said, the media often has an influential role in building support for partnerships, so media materials should be crafted accordingly. Media coverage on development issues may convince donors of the need to invest new resources, or prompt private sector concerns to seek collaboration. Once a project is underway, positive stories in the press may persuade existing or potential partners that UNDP is having an impact, and the work should be extended or expanded. See Working with the Media in this toolkit for more details on specific media activities.
Some partners know that they will benefit from media publicity linked to UNDP—such as a corporation wanting to improve its image for being ‘socially conscious’. UNDP may choose to proactively encourage this kind of direction. But these relationships must also be considered in terms of mutual benefits.
