The World Bank - Working for a world free of poverty

Syndicate content
Exploring the interactions among public opinion, governance, and the public sphere

About us

Welcome

"People, Spaces, Deliberation" was launched in 2008 by the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) and is now published by the External Affairs Operational Communication of the World Bank. The blog is edited by Sina Odugbemi and Diana Chung.
Learn More>>

Tanzania

Media Events for Development Campaigns

Submitted by Anne-Katrin Arnold on Mon, 08/16/2010 - 10:49

Using large international events to get attention for a development objective is a pretty good idea. Events like the Soccer World Cup are so called media events - events that capture the attention of a large audience, that break our routines, and unify a large scattered audience. Whatever team you were cheering for, you weren't the only one cheering for it, and didn't you feel like your team's friends were also your friends? This kind of mood - attention and a feeling of community - provides a great environment for campaigns that want to raise awareness about certain issues or that want to change norms and behaviors.

"Where the Really Exciting Stuff is Happening"

Submitted by Antonio Lambino on Thu, 03/25/2010 - 13:33

Twaweza is a Swahili word that means “we can make it happen.”  In Tanzania and Kenya, it is also the name of "a citizen-centered initiative, focusing on large-scale change in East Africa.”  Earlier this week, at the Center for Global Development, Twaweza head and founder Rakesh R. Rajani delivered a presentation the title of which tickled my imagination: “Why Ownership and Capacity Building Don’t Work: Lessons from East Africa.”

Making Parliaments Work through Better Communication

Submitted by Paul Mitchell on Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:03

Governments and development agencies have devoted many years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing democratic governance in countries around the world. The idea of creating democracies is still the primary driver of many governance improvement agendas. Clearly, democratic systems often bring with them improvements in governance and economic development, but simply putting a democracy into place is not enough.
 

Last week, this blog featured a quote by Elinor Ostrom, which contains an interesting sentence: “Yet I worry that the need for continuous civic engagement, intellectual struggle, and vigilance is not well understood in some of our mature democracies and is not transmitted to citizens and officials in new democracies….We have to avoid slipping into a naïve sense that democracy – once established – will continue on its own momentum."