African Communication

March 22, 2015

MC Africa computerThe Crawford Fund conducted another of its Master Classes in ‘Communicating Research to Stakeholders’, co-hosted at ICIPE – African Insect Science for Food and Health – at their Duduville Campus in Nairobi. The training is facilitated by Jenni Metcalfe from Econnect Communication and Toss Gascoigne from Gascoigne and Associates with our Director of Public Affairs and Communication, Cathy Reade.

It was attended by 23 staff of institutions from across Africa and an Australian from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. Details about the Master Class format are available here.

Our Master Classes in ‘Communicating Research to Stakeholders’ have been held in Asia, Africa and the Pacific in response to a growing appreciation in agricultural research institutions in developing and developed countries alike of the need to justify investment in agricultural science. The workshops help agricultural scientists to tell the story of their work and its impact to a broad range of non-scientific audiences in funding agencies, other interested stakeholders such as farmers and extension agencies and to the general public through the media.

We have also compiled comments from the training blog from other participants which make for very positive reading!

The photos below are from the Master Class in Nairobi.
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Feedback from our other Master Classes shows we have successfully identified and met a strong demand for training in communications in the agricultural research sector.

Reports from the class run in the Pacific provide an indication of the impact that comes from the new knowledge, skills and resources received. These include additional project funding, improved personal confidence, presentations with greater impact, a flow on to participants’ staff and colleagues through subsequent team training, development of new communication resources, and more successful media interviews and report writing, to name a few.

Other Master Classes

India

Fiji

Ethiopia

Thailand