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This 50-page paper sets forth a series of core communication indicators for assessing the impact of activities and projects using information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development. It is published by the Research and Extension Division, Natural Resources and Environment Department, of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Drawing from the practice and thinking already in circulation, author Warren Feek considers the end goal of ICT-based interventions, such as the possibility for increased participation of people in decision-making and policies which affects their lives brought about by ICT use - rather than the technology used. This is because there is nothing inherent in the new technologies that prompts positive development; they are just tools. It is insufficient to measure, for example, household or village access to the internet as a predictor of positive future social and economic progress. For, as Feek presses, what if the headman in the village or the senior male in the family monopolises use and information flow?

In this context, Feek lays the groundwork for his series of indicators, exploring two schools of thought: the communication for development thinking undertaken by the Communication for Social Change (CFSC) Consoritum, and the Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal (PRCA) approach developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. He provides 3 main reasons for choosing these models:

1. Both the change models and their strategic thinking derive from a combination of experiences of communication for development practitioners and of research and evaluation data.
2. Both approaches share an emphasis on community engagement and management, participation, empowerment, local capacities, ownership, and negotiation between vested interest groups.
3. CFSC is a comparatively recent theoretical and strategic approach to communication for development, while the PRCA approach is drawn from the long-standing participatory rural appraisal strategies. "This combination of new and established thinking provides a credible lens."

Feek then explores the fundamentals of each school of thought. In brief, the PRCA approach to research has the following characteristics:

• It is holistic: it researches community needs, opportunities, problems, and solutions, as well as communication issues, networks, and systems.
• It is participatory: the researcher is a facilitator who enables people to undertake and share their own investigation and analysis, leading to sustainable local action and improved communication.
• It empowers and builds the capacity of communities.
• It leads to joint planning of both development action and communication programmes with the community.
• It deals with interacting groups identified on the basis of sharing a common problem and segmented according to criteria identified by the people themselves. People are active participants in the process of generating and analysing information.
• It emphasises the use of visual methods for generating, analysing, and presenting data.
• It emphasises change of attitude and behaviour among facilitators.
• It seeks a means to create mutual understanding between local people and development workers in order to marry local capabilities with outsiders' knowledge and skills for more effective problem-solving.
• The community presents the results of the appraisal.
• The community owns and keeps the results.

The CFSC approach entails:

• Dialogue: increased inter-personal, inter-family, community, and national dialogue on the priority development issues as perceived by the people themselves.
• Voice: increased emphasis on enabling those most affected by the development issues under consideration to make their voices heard.
• Decision-making: the communication strategy is established, reviewed, and renewed by the people directly affected.
• Platforms: the emphasis is on establishing stable, ongoing communication processes rather than running discrete communication campaigns, thus ensuring a foundation to the communication process.
• Symbols: best if they emerge naturally, take on meaning, embody the analysis and/or vision of the movement in question, and resonate with the general population.
• Alliances: positive progress results from varied actions, by a range of organisations and interest groups, most often with no formal coordination but with a shared, albeit often unspoken, sense of purpose and analysis.

Feek's indicators emanate from these overall social change development strategies, which he states have proven impact. He stresses that they are informed (and reinforced) by the perspectives emerging from the ICT evaluation literature· They also provide short-term measurements that predict long-term change, are simple and practical, and are applicable across the full range of development contexts.

The 18 indicators can be collated as follows, grouped into their categories:

Holistic dialogue

1. The ICTs are increasingly used for dialogue and debate.

2. Policy and programme knowledge is increasingly communicated through the ICTs.

3. There are increased levels of access to the ICT processes.

Community and individual voice

4. The opinions and ideas expressed through ICT channels are increasingly those of the people most affected by development issues in any given context.

5. The people most affected by development issues in any given context increasingly dominate the physical use of the ICTs.

6. Technical experts on ICT for development increasingly respond to and implement the technical requirements voiced by those most affected.

Participatory decision-making

7. A minimum of 40% of the people involved in the management are directly affected by the development issues that the ICTs being mobilised are designed to address.

8. There are x (the number inserted here depends on the scale and nature of the programme being evaluated) examples in the last 12 months of the use of the ICTs for engaging people directly affected by development issues in overall programme management and/or policy development.

Building communication platforms

9. The ICTs are increasingly used to draw relationships between different development issues.

10. The ICTs are increasingly used as a communication platform to identify and negotiate the specific strategic and technical support that development organisations require.

11. The ICTs are increasingly used as the source for the core information needed to better inform individual development activities.

12. The ICTs are increasingly used as the gathering point for like-focused organisations and groups.

Change symbols

13. The ICTs are increasingly used to highlight emerging symbols and images related to action on the development issue(s) in question.

14. The ICTs are increasingly used to multiply strong symbols and/or images that are emerging from the struggle.

15. The ICTs are increasingly used to both convey meaning and deepen debate and dialogue through the symbols and images presented.

Working alliances

16. The ICTs are increasingly used to build working strategic and/or operational partnerships with other organisations that have similar vested interests.

17. The ICTs are increasingly used to participate in networks of like-focused organisations.

18. The ICTs are increasingly used to both provide support to others involved in compatible action and to receive support from such organisations.

Feek explains - and illustrates, through a diagram on page 26 - that little will be gained from a massive increase in one element of the process - for example, just focusing on getting as many people directly affected as possible involved in the management of the programme or initiative. Attention to that element of the process needs to be matched by corresponding improvements in action in the other 5 areas. That is, there must be a balanced and harmonious relationship between all the elements above.

Feek next uses the first four categories of indicators to highlight the possible ways in which evaluation methodologies can be used to collect the relevant information. He examines how such methods as content analysis, structured and unstructured interviews, surveys and questionnaires, and participant and non-participant observation would look in each case.

He concludes with two core observations. First, "[t]here is a chicken-and-egg quality to the perspective presented above. Which should come first when developing indicators to measure the impact of ICTs on development issues: the evidence from research or the assertions from experience and thinking? He explains that, though there is no compelling data at this time, the assertions are nonetheless important because they provide one framework through which the research can be funnelled. Also, Feek recognises that "[w]hen people and organizations know the criteria by which they will be assessed, they tend to work to strengthen those factors....If the dominant thinking assesses ICT developments according to these evaluation indicators, this will drive programming towards those elements."