The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Lessons from the field: ICTs and Healthcare

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Summary

According to this article, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly being used to facilitate two-way information exchange in healthcare. This exchange is designed to provide isolated communities worldwide with access to updated health information and treatment, as well as to keep officials informed about rural public health issues. This trend is significant, the authors claim, because the majority of the population in developing countries lives in rural areas, while the majority of the medical community is centred in the cities. In India, for example, 80% of the population is served by only 20% of doctors. This trend, they say, leaves the 11% of those living in rural India without high-quality healthcare.


The article details some of the tools being used to facilitate this knowledge exchange:

  1. Online health information and portals that include The Health InterNetwork project, The AfriAfya Initiative, and INASP Health Links.
  2. Telemedicine initiatives that are designed to bring advanced diagnostic methods and treatment to areas that currently have little access. Some hospitals are starting their own programmes, like The Aravind Eye Hospital's efforts to help eradicate blindness by using Internet-connected kiosks. Other programmes work with existing healthcare facilities, as in the case of DoctorAnywhere.com, Pesinet (Senegal), and TelMedPak (Pakistan).
  3. Projects that utilise phone networks in new ways to improve health services. For instance, South Africa's ExactMobile is using phones to enable doctors to receive detailed laboratory test results on the same day the samples were submitted. Other projects detailed in the article include On-Cue Compliance (South Africa), the Voxiva Health Alert and Reporting System (Peru), and the Videophone Telemedicine Project (Indonesia).
  4. Handheld computers that bring healthcare to rural areas. To cite one example, The HandyVaid initiative uses PDAs to collect information from villagers using a pre-designed consultation form. This information is then transferred to a doctor in the city, who diagnoses the problem and suggests appropriate treatment, precautions, and medication. The doctor's diagnosis and suggested treatment is then transferred to the PDA and carried back to the villager.

This article also includes an option to search the Clearinghouse for almost 50 related healthcare initiatives that use ICT.


Click here for the full article on the World Resources Institute Digital Dividend site.


Source

iConnect Highlights, sent via email to Ghana Information Networking and Knowledge Sharing (GINKS) on July 31 2003.