Development communication refers to the use of communication to facilitate social development. Development communication engages stakeholders and policy makers, establishes conducive environments, assesses risks and opportunities and promotes information exchange to create positive social change via sustainable development. Development communication techniques include information dissemination and education, behavior change, social marketing, social mobilization, media advocacy, communication for social change, and community participation.
Citizen Participation or Public Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic, political, management, cultural or familial.
Agricultural extension is the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education. The field of 'extension' now encompasses a wider range of communication and learning activities organized for rural people by educators from different disciplines, including agriculture, agricultural marketing, health, and business studies.
Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.
Public participation, also known as citizen participation or patient and public involvement, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder engagement.
Participatory GIS (PGIS) or public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) is a participatory approach to spatial planning and spatial information and communications management.
Information and communication technology in agriculture, also known as e-agriculture, focuses on the enhancement of agricultural and rural development through improved information and communication processes. More specifically, e-agriculture involves the conceptualization, design, development, evaluation and application of innovative ways to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the rural domain, with a primary focus on agriculture. ICT includes devices, networks, mobiles, services and applications; these range from innovative Internet-era technologies and sensors to other pre-existing aids such as fixed telephones, televisions, radios and satellites. Provisions of standards, norms, methodologies, and tools as well as development of individual and institutional capacities, and policy support are all key components of e-agriculture.
Participatory planning is an urban planning paradigm that emphasizes involving the entire community in the community planning process. Participatory planning emerged in response to the centralized and rationalistic approaches that defined early urban planning work. It has become a highly influential paradigm both in the context of traditional urban planning, and in the context of international community development. There is no singular theoretical framework or set of practical methods that make up participatory planning. Rather, it is a broad paradigm which incorporates a wide range of diverse theories and approaches to community planning. In general, participatory planning programs prioritize the integration of technical expertise with the preferences and knowledge of community members in the planning process. They also generally emphasize consensus building and collective community decision making, and prioritize the participation of traditionally marginalized groups in the planning process.
Participatory Web 2.0 for development was a term coined around 2007-2008 to describe new ways of employing legemvweb services, in order to improve information sharing and collaborative production of content in the context of development work. Emerging developments in participatory Web and user-generated content platforms were seen to create conditions by which actors in development could easily relate to other stakeholders, have selective access to information, produce and publish their own content and redistribute pieces of content released by others. At this time, new social tools, such as wikis, blogs, and other user-generated content platforms, were first being considered for their ability to help development actors integrate, combine, aggregate, generate, moderate and mediate content. In a typical Web2forDev scenario data and/or functionalities from a number of free/low cost online applications are combined and served as mashups thus ensuring a wide range of online services at low cost. The term is no longer used in the development informatics or ICT4D fields.
The United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation is a collaborative programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), created in 2008 in response to the UNFCCC decisions on the Bali Action Plan and REDD at COP 13. It should not be confused with REDD+, a voluntary climate change mitigation approach that has been developed by Parties to the UNFCCC.
Market information systems are information systems used in gathering, analyzing and disseminating information about prices and other information relevant to farmers, animal rearers, traders, processors and others involved in handling agricultural products. Market information systems play an important role in agro-industrialisation and food supply chains. With the advance of information and communication technologies for development (ICTs) in developing countries, the income- generation opportunities offered by market information systems have been sought by international development organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and businesses alike.
Participatory development (PD) seeks to engage local populations in development projects. Participatory development has taken a variety of forms since it emerged in the 1970s, when it was introduced as an important part of the "basic needs approach" to development. Most manifestations of public participation in development seek "to give the poor a part in initiatives designed for their benefit" in the hopes that development projects will be more sustainable and successful if local populations are engaged in the development process. PD has become an increasingly accepted method of development practice and is employed by a variety of organizations. It is often presented as an alternative to mainstream "top-down" development. There is some question about the proper definition of PD as it varies depending on the perspective applied. Two perspectives that can define PD are the "Social Movement Perspective" and the "Institutional Perspective":
Media development involves capacity building for institutions or individuals related to freedom of expression, pluralism and diversity of media, as well as transparency of media ownership. Media development plays a role in democracy and effective democratic discourse through supporting free and independent media.
Social and behavior change communication (SBCC), often also only "BCC" or "Communication for Development (C4D)" is an interactive process of any intervention with individuals, group or community to develop communication strategies to promote positive behaviors which are appropriate to their settings and thereby solving the world's most pressing health problems. This in turn provides a supportive environment which will enable people to initiate, sustain and maintain positive and desirable behavior outcomes.
The Asia-Pacific Telecentre Network (APTN) is a collaborative initiative of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) and telecentre.org. The APTN Secretariat is hosted at ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA). APTN is dedicated to promote innovation and knowledge sharing amongst telecentres in the Asia-Pacific region where telecentres are growing exponentially each year. APTN is working towards creating a platform of networks of telecentres, to share experiences on issues of their interest and to cooperate on the development of solutions for common problems of the telecentres themselves in order to empower poor and disadvantaged communities with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Asia Pacific Region. In other words, APTN will serve as the focal network or the knowledge hub for communication and information technology in the Asia Pacific region.
Community-driven development (CDD) is an initiative in the field of development that provides control of the development process, resources and decision making authority directly to groups in the community. The underlying assumption of CDD projects are that communities are the best judges of how their lives and livelihoods can be improved and, if provided with adequate resources and information, they can organize themselves to provide for their immediate needs. CDD projects work by providing poor communities with direct funding for development with the communities then deciding how to spend the money. Lastly, the community plans and builds the project and takes responsibility for monitoring its progress.
Soil governance refers to the policies, strategies, and the processes of decision-making employed by nation states and local governments regarding the use of soil. Globally, governance of the soil has been limited to an agricultural perspective due to increased food insecurity from the most populated regions on earth. The Global Soil Partnership, GSP, was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its members with the hope to improve governance of the limited soil resources of the planet in order to guarantee healthy and productive soils for a food-secure world, as well as support other essential ecosystem services.
The Ibero-American Model Forest Network (RIABM) is the regional network representing the 29 Model Forests across the Caribbean, Latin American and Spain.
21st century skills comprise skills, abilities, and learning dispositions that have been identified as being required for success in 21st century society and workplaces by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. This is part of a growing international movement focusing on the skills required for students to master in preparation for success in a rapidly changing, digital society. Many of these skills are also associated with deeper learning, which is based on mastering skills such as analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork. These skills differ from traditional academic skills in that they are not primarily content knowledge-based.
