Download In-depth interviewing is the appropriate design to be used in this

What is the cultural impact of communication technologies on international
organisations?:
The case of Christian Aid
Juan C. Villalobos
University of Leeds
Institute of Communications Studies
MA International Communications 2006/7
TABLE OF CONTENT
1.- Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 4
2.- Literature review………………………………………………………………... 6
2.1 The global and the local: opposite concepts?............................................. 6
2.2.- Communicating in different cultures…………………………………… 10
2.3.- Talking to ourselves………………………………………………….…. 17
2.4.- Seducing the media……………………………………………………… 20
2.5.- Who are we?.............................................................................................. 22
3.- Methodology……………………………………………………………………. 24
4.- Analysis and discussion………………………………………………………… 27
4.1.- A common voice across boundaries………………………………….…. 27
4.2.- With the aid of an arrow………………………………………………... 29
4.3.-Intranet: an internal global voice? ………………………………..…….... 33
4.4.- The power of a good story………………………………………….….. 38
4.5.- A further impact………………………………………………………... 41
4.6.- Communicating beyond boundaries…………………………………….. 43
5.- Conclusion……………………………………………………………………… 48
5.1.- The centre versus the periphery………………………………………. 49
5.2.- Seeing the differences………………………………………………… 50
5.3.- A changing face………………………………………………………. 51
6.- Reference ……….……………………………………………………………… 53
7.- Appendices ...………………………………………………………………… 56
2
7.1.- List of interviewees ………………………………………………………... 56
7.2.- Interview sample ………………………………………………………....... 58
1.- Introduction
3
Globalisation and communication’s advances have brought not only endless
opportunities but also new challenges and threats to international organisations. On one
hand, agencies that work internationally can use evolving communication technologies
to talk to their members in ways that were unthinkable just a decade ago. They can also
enhance their brand identity and engage their internal audiences in shaping the
organisation’s policies and decentralizing the decision making process. On the other
hand, these new communication tools can also increase internal conflicts and
disagreements, amplify intercultural misunderstanding, and make international NGOs
more exposed to public scrutiny and critics.
In Christian Aid (here after referred to as CA) the impact of these transformations
has been pivotal. Due to the size, history, presence and influence of this agency, the
study of how CA has transformed its internal and external communication activities to
meet a fast-changing environment, can forecast the route that international organisations
will take in order to make their communication efforts effective and significant.
This dissertation aims to identify the cultural impact of communication
technologies on international organisations. The experience of CA shows that agencies
that seek to make an impact in the global arena have to constantly rethink the way they
see branding, cross cultural communication and their internal and external
communication practices. One of the most interesting aspects of this study is that CA is
exploring and experimenting with different ways to cope with the new cultural and
communication environment brought by globalisation. Consequently, it is a very novel
subject whose importance relies on the fact that it will give a still unknown new face to
global organisations.
Because of its prominent position in the charity world and the innovations that it
is undertaking, the analysis of the CA’s initiatives can shed new lights on the challenges
4
that organisations working with an international staff face in a fast-changing field,
especially when for many of them the area of communication is a relatively new
concern.
Founded in 1945 by a group of British and Irish Christian churches, the original
CA's aim was to assist the European survivors of the Second World War. More than 60
years later, this organisation has broadened its audience, working in the poor countries
of Asia, Africa and Latin America. With an international staff of more than 750 people
and with 32 overseas offices, CA supports 652 national organisations in 46 countries.
The agency and their local NGO partners work together, with finance provided by CA
and development and implementation of projects coming from the NGOs.
In its 2005 strategic framework, this agency states its key goals:
"Securing livelihood, campaigning for economic justice,
promoting accountable governance, halting the spread of
HIV, strengthening the social movement to eradicate
poverty, and making the organization more effective"
(Christian Aid Strategic Framework, 2005 : 3-4).
Specifically, in the latest years this agency has been involved in campaigning
about climate change, Third World debt and fair trade. Currently, CA is working in a
decentralization process that, according to the organisation’s top managers, "will
transform the way that it works and how decisions are made".
To make a smooth and effective transition to this new organization model, the
agency has been dedicated to building a strong institutional brand and improve the
communication within a staff disseminated worldwide. In the context, the use of new
5
communication technologies such as Skype and Intranet possibilities have played an
increasingly important role.
This dissertation is divided into four main chapters: a literature review,
methodology, analysis of research and conclusion. The literature review examines key
theories and previous finding in the field of globalisation and glocalisation; internal
communication and the use of Intranet, the impact of intercultural communication and
media relations with NGOs.
The methodology shows how the information and data was gathered. It will
explain why in-depth interviewing and participat observation were chosen as the most
suitable methods considering the characteristics of the organisation studied and the aims
of the study.
In the analysis the main findings are presented and discussed. Finally, the
conclusion discusses the results and introduces the lessons that international
organisations can draw from my CA experience and possible further research in the
area.
2.- LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The global and the local: opposite concepts?
Increasingly, multicultural organisations have experimented how globalisation has
changed relationships among people and institutions and how new communications
technologies has shrunken the planet. Specifically, the experience of CA shows how
local issues appeal to global audiences and influence the course of globalisation.
Giddens (1990) defines globalisation as the process of strengthening the
worldwide social relations that link distant localities in such a way that local events are
6
shaped by circumstances occur in other parts of the world. As a result, the interaction
among different cultural groups has increased. In the same line, Featherstone (1990)
explains that “due to globalisation, the person who was unequivocally outside now
becomes a neighbour, with the result that the inside/outside distinction fails” (p.11).
At the first sight, globalisation seems the perfect tool to increase the
understanding among cultures and bring people together, a key aim of international
organisations. However, many critics of the impact of globalisation warn that it also
homogenises culture and gives the world “an American face, an American look, and an
American taste” (Friedman, 2006 : 506).
Barnett and Lee (2002) add that, due to the increase of information exchange
among people from different groups, one of the consequences of globalisation is
cultural homogenisation.
If this point of view is followed, it could be predicted that the great amount of
information and experiences that members from different cultures share, working in the
same organisation would produce a “homogenisation” that would reduce internal
communication problems. The case of CA, however, proves otherwise: the more
contacts people have, the more chances of facing miscommunication and cultural
misunderstandings.
Friedman (2006) highlights that globalisation has a great potential to encourage
diversity to a degree never seen before. It helps to present local cultures to the world,
and in the case of international NGOs, broadcast local demands, denounce local
injustices and appeal for worldwide help. The fact that modern societies are highly
interconnected, not only allow local leaders to talk to a global audience without leaving
their communities, but also ensure that the world will pay attention to their messages. In
other words, the local has gone global.
7
In the same line, Featherstone (1990) suggests that there is little evidence of a
unified global culture, but there are several global cultures. These emerging “third
cultures”, explains the author, are channels of all kind of diverse cultural flows, so they
cannot be understood as just the result of bilateral exchange between traditional nationstates. He claims that the increase in the number of international NGOs, the new global
forms of communications, and the development of rights and conceptions of humankind
have accelerated “the globalisation process which points to the extension of global
cultural interrelatedness” (Featherstone, 1990 : 6).
In this context, several scholars have developed a new concept: glocalisation,
which describe the relationship between the global and the local. Robertson (1995)
argues that these terms are not opposite and that, in fact, “locality can be regarded, with
certain reservations, as an aspect of globalisation” (pp. 30). The scholar states that
glocalisation refers to the “construction” and “invention” of diverse “localities” through
global flows of ideas and information. Therefore, it can be said that the local has
become a constitute feature of the global. Accordingly, now it is easier for organisations
that work beyond boundaries to engage donors, government, media and the general
public in their causes, despite the fact that they are about local issues and demands.
“Globalisation –in the broadest sense,
the
compression of the world- has
involved and increasingly involves the
creation and the incorporation of
locality, processes which themselves
largely shape, in turn, the compression
of the world as a whole” (Robertson,
8
1995 : 40).
In the field of international agencies, new communication technologies have given
powerful tools to members based in the South, allowing them to get their voices heard
at the organisation headquarters (generally located in the North). Internet permits the
local to shape the global, and for instance, staff working abroad can upload their
opinions in the format of a podcast, blog or newsletter and communicate them
instantaneously using email or Skype. This is highly celebrated when local employees
just want to share their points of view, but what about if they challenge the senior
managers’ policies regarding controversial issues? As the case of CA demonstrates, the
increasing influence of the local could be a “sword with two edges”.
Michael Noyes, CA’s Developed Ways of Working Project Manager, says that as
the organisation decentralises and recruits more locally, they have staffers with different
opinions. “For instance, when our Head of Policies went to our office in Nairobi, he was
shocked at the number of staffers who were pro-Bush and the war in Iraq”. Despite the
fact that CA managers celebrate having a richer and more diverse staff, in reality, the
lack of flexibility to be truly shaped by voices from the South, predicts they will
continuously be “shocked” by these dissents, rather then welcoming them.
Featherstone (1990) states that one of the most important consequences of
globalisation, is that more people have started interacting with more than one culture.
For global institutions, this means more practical problems of intercultural
communication.
2.2.- Communicating in different cultures
Computed mediated communication and instant access to worldwide publics bring
9
together people from different backgrounds (Barnett and Lee, 2002). As a result,
international agencies need greater sensitivity to cultural differences. In this context,
Barna (1988) comments that, much to people’s surprise, good intentions are simply not
enough to be successful to talk with different cultures.
“Many of us naively assume there are sufficient
similarities among peoples of the world to enable
us to successfully exchange information and/or
feelings, solve problems of mutual concern, cement
business relations, or just make the kind of
impression we wish to make” (Barna, 1988 : 322).
To avoid the common wrong assumption among communication practitioners that
“people are people” and that “deep down we’re all alike”, it is useful to define and
understand the concept of culture. Without a doubt, this is a complex task. Jenks (2005),
for example, tells that in 1952 the anthropologists A.L. Kroeber and R. Kluckhonn
counted more than 162 definitions, with more than 300 variations.
Porter and Samovar (1988) characterise culture as:
“The deposit of knowledge, experiences, beliefs,
values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion,
timing, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the
universe, and material objects and possessions
acquires by a large group of people in the curse of
generations through individual and group striving”
10
(Porter and Samovar, 1988 : 20).
In the same line, Ma (2000) asserts that, in the context of intercultural
communication, a message is encoded by an individual according to his/her own
cultural background; while another person, from a different culture, tries to decode the
message without knowing the codes of the sender. Because communications is always a
matter of interpersonal actions and reactions, messages can be easily lost, misinterpreted
or distorted. Generally, people face these problems when they visit a country as a tourist
or when they do business in a different culture. However, for organisations that
functions across frontiers, those are daily basic concerns.
The definition of intercultural communication seems simple: “it is the exchange of
information between individuals who are unlike culturally” (Rogers and Steinfatt, 1999
: 4). However, Barnett and Lee (2002) add complexity to this concept stating that when
two or more persons from different cultural backgrounds communicate, they have to
negotiate the meaning of the exchange symbols. This “negotiation of meaning”,
according to the authors, does not necessarily lead to the reduction of future
uncertainties, but, on the contrary, it may generate greater frustration, misunderstanding
and anxiety.
Edward T. Hall, the founder of intercultural communication, tackled the hidden
problem of cultural assumptions when people step into cross-cultural settings. Hall
introduces the concepts of “in-awareness” and “out-of-awareness” to help distinguish
between which is explicit, known or observable in a culture, and what appears to be
implicit, unknown and hidden -even to members of the same culture. The goal of
intercultural communication research is to identify culturally-mediated phenomena that
were “out-awareness” and bring them “in-awareness”. By bringing aspects of culture
11
“in-awareness”, the many distortions and misunderstandings that plague cross-cultural
communication could be explained and even compensated for (Zaharna, 2001: 135).
Talking about the challenges that global institutions confront, Brislin (1981)
recommends that, when recruiting personnel, they should consider applicant’s previous
cross-cultural experience and intercultural sensitivity. This scholar argues that one of
the most effective ways of encouraging staff’s involvement is to include them in the
decision making process, so they will feel valued and that their expertise is considered.
For CA, though, this approach has been quite problematic and its consequences are still
evolving. When managers have encouraged a local discussion about HIV prevention,
for instance, they realised that their partners in developing countries had a much more
conservative view of the issues. Then, the dilemma is if the agency managers should
change their policies following the views of dissident members and partners or should
they stop working with those who have a substantially different point of view.
So far, the practice has been to engage employees in the debate and then to set the
official line. However, due to the fact that the decision-making process is still highly
centralised in the London headquarters and that the internal working culture is still very
vertical, members from the South don’t have a real influence.
Discussing the cross-cultural problems of staffers working in different countries,
Brislin (1981) names two difficulties that are also present in CA: “the field-home
distinction” and “’localitis’ and provincialism” (1981: 246-247).
In the first case, Brislin (1981) says that usually people in local offices see their
central headquarters’ colleagues as “bunch of ethnocentric do-nothings who are
completely unaware of the realities facing host country citizens. (…) People in the
central office, on the other hand, feel that sojourners identify too much with hosts and
have no idea of the work necessary to acquire and defend funding for international
12
project” (1981 : 246).
In the second case, Brislin (1981) addresses the problem of local personnel
becoming too involved in their immediate environment. The author says that in some
cases the staff can’t separate their feelings for the national reality, so their interpretation
and reporting of local events may be biased. Interestingly enough, Michael Noyes also
complains that “sometimes local personnel end up representing the country to CA,
rather than representing the agency in the country”.
In this context, how should international organisations tackle those intercultural
communication gaps? Smith (2005) points out that social context dictates how the
everyday and basic information should be conducted. In countries like Germany, for
example, it is possible to send an email request to an unknown individual and get a
response, while in Latin nations it is necessary to first introduce yourself. The author
also explains that when communicating with people from different cultures, managers
and employees should be aware of basic things such as dress codes, appropriate
greeting, bank holidays and working hours, as well as religious and cultural traditions
and costumes.
Talking about cultural differences, Alastair Cunningham and Christine Bui, CA’s
Latin America and Caribbean region administrators based in London, explain how in
every email or Skype contact, they have to spend some time greeting the local officers,
otherwise the communication would be ineffective and they would be considered rude.
However, that is unnecessary when they are talking to colleagues in CA’s headquarters.
Sparrow (2006) says that members of multicultural organisations ought to
recognize and accept differences in communication values and styles. Based on the
information gathered, it can be stated that in countries from the South, for example, to
discuss issues orally is seen as very effective, while in nations from the North,
13
employees prefer things written down. In CA these differences in working styles are
clear when dealing with accounting and keeping track of contracts and commitments.
While in the UK the staff is very conscious about having everything written down,
however, in Latin America, the officers rely more on oral agreements.
Advising communication practitioners about how to effectively deal with cultural
differences in international organisations, Zaharna (2001) outlines those differences
between cultures that produce barriers and communication misunderstandings. She says
that there are “high-context” (e.g. Arabic) versus “low-context” cultures (e.g.
American), depending how much meaning is found in the context versus in the
message; and “monochromic” versus “polychromic” cultures, depending on their
individuals’ tendency to segment time and activities (the former) or to be engaged in
several activities at once (the latter). Basing in her study of the Arabic and American
cultures, the author describes also the “doing or activity-oriented” versus “beingoriented” cultures; and “future-oriented” versus “past-oriented”. Finally, the scholar
explains that in “linear” culture such as the American, people rely primarily on
empirical evidence whilst in “non-liner” traditions, like the Arabic, goals and messages
are communicating orally and the nonverbal communication is very important.
When Zaharna describes the “doing or activity-oriented” versus “being-oriented”
cultures, she tackles a cultural misunderstanding frequently present in CA. According to
the experiences of London based managers and local staff members, for people in the
South it is more important what relationships they develop with their colleagues and
their capacity to work as a team than what people do individually and how efficient they
are in their jobs. For example, when managers travel overseas they get impatient at how
much time local people spend taking them out to see their cities and traditions. With this
attitude, they overlook many valuable aspects of local cultures. If managers were more
14
willing to spend sometime understanding the local working culture, they would be more
efficient because they would understand their colleagues better and learn from them. As
a result, the organisation would be more effective as an agency that works globally. On
the other hand, when staff members from the South visit the CA headquarters, they feel
that their colleagues are cool and distant.
Nevertheless, CA staff members –no matter if they are from the South or the
North- explain that all of them rely on empirical evidence to do their work and that oral
communication and nonverbal signs are pivotal in the communication efforts. This
reality contradicts the Zaharna’s division between “linear” and “non-liner” traditions. It
can be stated that people who work for the same organisation develop a shared working
culture that helps them to overcome some of the cultural differences present in a
organisation with an international staff.
Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988) focus on the different verbal communication
styles among cultures. Comparing the American and British cultures on one hand, and
the Japanese, Indian and Arab cultures on the other; the authors say that Americans and
British communicate in a direct, succinct, personal and instrumental style, whereas
Arabs, Indians and Japanese use an indirect, elaborate, contextual and affective style.
The intensification of daily contacts and exchange of information among people
separated by thousands of kilometres has put language as the main source of
communication’s troubles. The working language in the CA is English, a language that
is seen in places like Latin America as a “tool of domination” and a “representation of
American Imperialism”.
Reynolds and Valentine (2004) argue that language imposes a unique view of the
world and shape their speakers’ “explanation of the universe” (pp. 58). In fact, when
studying the common misunderstandings and main cultural differences cited by
15
managers on London and their counterparts in the local offices, it is clear that language
influences the way that they communicate, work and see the world.
In English the reality is measurable, because it emphasizes rational and
cause/effect thinking and its messages are direct, explicit and personal. Therefore, this
language is individualistic and it focuses on abilities and achievements. Other languages
–like Spanish- use more words to explain concepts than could be delivered in a just
couple of sentences in English.
Based on her experience as a Briton gathering stories and meeting with staff and
partners throughout Latin America, Hannah Morley also identifies how language and
culture shapes people’s perspectives. She says that while English people go straight to
the point and privilege efficiency, in countries like Peru and Brazil people are more
open and invest time in building relationships. She asserts that one of the things that has
impressed her the most, is the Latin American’s custom of using very long sentences in
speaking and writing.
Reynolds and Valentine (2004) claim that the English language sees people as the
agents for action/decision (the subject of the sentence) and it considers what they do as
important (the verb is the most relevant part of a sentence). According to these scholars,
languages spoken in developing countries are multi-values, complex, subtle and allow
for a wider interpretation. In these languages, the messages are indirect and impersonal
and social harmony is more important than personal achievements.
Although it is arguable how much it is just the influence of language –like
Reynolds and Valentine state- or it is a matter of how vertical or horizontal societies are
and how used people are to challenging authority, the experience in CA proves that
people in the South feel uncomfortable disagreeing with managers and value more
social harmony and group success than individual success.
16
2.3.- Talking to ourselves
Due to these challenges and endless differences within global staffs, effective
internal communication is becoming a key resource for international organisations.
Nevertheless, internal communication has been traditionally developed in the
commercial sector rather than in the public sector. Smith (2005) explains that this
happens because NGOs rarely have a large number of staff and it is still hard for them
to justify expenses in their employees rather than in their cause.
But, as the experience of CA shows, in the last years, the public sector has being
very active in terms of employee engagement. Not surprisingly, for NGOs and Aid
agencies is not difficult to excite their staff with their goals, activities and mission. “It is
much easier to embrace the vision of helping a community than selling a biscuit, no
matter how healthy” (Smith, 2005 : p. 4).
Quirke (2002) states that good internal communications means providing content,
creating context, having conversations and gathering feedbacks from employees. The
scholar adds that internal communications is a responsibility of everyone in the
institution, from the CEO to the junior staffers. In this context, managers should be
information’s “facilitators” rather than “blockages”.
For CA, new information technologies, especially the Intranet, have been pivotal
tools to communicate with its internal audiences. Steven Buckley, Christian Aid’s
Internal Communications Manager, explains that “we have moved from a situation
where the information was closed and it was up to every staffer to share it, to a system
where everybody stores data in the same network, available to everyone within the
agency. It is a complete flip and a lot of organisations in the field have followed this
model”.
17
Botazzo (2005) agrees with this view adding that an efficient organisational
communication is essential for the success of an institution and that online new
communication plays an important role in achieving that. The scholar stresses that from
all the audiences of an organisation, the internal public is key for its success, although
its importance is rarely recognized. The scholar argues that “a new paradigm of internal
communication is transferred from simple informing one-way to two-way
communication” (pp. 78). The author even says that internal communication tools such
as the Intranet could make employees more influential in management’s decisions,
because it encourages them to be more involved in the creation of the institution’s
policies, share knowledge and keep them in touch with one another.
Currently, institutions that are actively developing their Intranets –from the
private and public sectors- use it to share internal documents, develop search engines,
and post calendars of events, surveys, news groups and bulletin boards among others.
The employees themselves could be influential contributors and shapers of this network
producing newsletters, publishing blogs, uploading podcast, etc. Holtz (2005) argues
that, ideally, everything that the staffers need to have in order to do their jobs will be
located on the Intranet.
Based on the experience of CA, however, it seems very unlikely that staffers,
especially those located in the South and without a strong knowledge of English, could
actually share management’s responsibilities with senior staffers working in the
headquarters. Indeed, many employees are sceptical of the real impact of the Intranet.
Throp (2003) acknowledges that commonly employees and even senior managers
consider it as the “place to store stuff that nobody wants or cares about but that we have
to put somewhere” (p. 3). Therefore, this author recognises the strength of the Intranet
through integrating it with other existing communication channel, ensuring full
18
employees access and making it consistent with an organisation’s values.
Aware of the necessity to motivate their members to use this online tool and make
it a relevant source of information, CA has promoted data sharing through blogs written
by its staff. Holtz (2005) says that employee’s blogs can be considered as a new
communication channel rather than a new technology and that blogging help people to
learn from their colleagues’ experience and encourage teamwork.
However, the main constraint of the effectiveness of the Intranet as the main
internal communication channel is the still huge technology gap between Northern and
Southern cultures. In 2007, although the network accessibility is rapidly increasing very
quickly, it is only CA’s offices in the UK, Ireland, Kenya, Kazakhstan and Honduras
that have full access to the agency’s intranet.
Despite all these new opportunities, some authors warn that many NGOs tend to
put more emphasis on the process than in the messages. Gorman (2003) believes that
focusing on electronic rather than on face-to-face communication affects internal
communication negatively. He recommends “high tough” instead of “high tech”.
2.4.- Seducing the media
Communicating with the press, donors and the general public is a pivotal part of
an organisation communication’s efforts. The influence of the mass media is such that
CA only spends on advertising when the issue that it wants to promote in the news.
Therefore, people already have been exposed to it.
Wilcox (2005) claims that the media is a cost-effective channel to communicate
with the audiences and it, by inference, acts as third-party endorsers of the information
given by the source. “Media gatekeepers give the information credibility and
importance by deciding that it is newsworthy. The information is not longer just given
19
by an organization but for The York Times or CNN” (Wilcox, 2005 : 307).
In the UNESCO official handbook for media relations, Barton (2003) defines
press relations as exchanging information and building networks and alliances to
achieve the organization’s objectives. The author also warns that a common mistake –
and a “recipe for failure”- of NGO’s and international agencies is not realise that the
public and media interest is about the issue that these institutions promote, not about
themselves. Barton stresses that credibility is the most important value to successfully
disseminating public information and that it is built on the quality and relevance of
international organisations “real world” contribution.
Rose (2005) utters that for most NGOs their only resource to secure real change is
public persuasion. While business has money and government has law, they only have
public support. As a result, journalists trust NGO’s more than they trust businesses,
politicians and paid-for scientists. Therefore, communication is their instrument for
change, not simply a way to publicize an opinion.
Through its use of emotive language and a concentration on human-interest
stories, CA is able to use the press to help them to reduce the distances between
people’s own experiences and those in distant geographical locations. The most
frequently used strategy in the agency’s internal and external communication is to
employ personal and real stories to communicate their messages and motivate both
employees and the general public, allowing them to identify with those who are
suffering. Rose (2005) affirms that stories with a human interest, based around a person,
can move the audience from “right-brain to left-brain communication, from facts and
rationality to emotions and feelings” (p.22). The author concludes saying that human
stories attract the press and they are the ideal material for feature articles -where issues
are presented more in depth-, rather than for news.
20
Nevertheless, Ross (2004), in a extensive study of humanitarian relief press’
coverage, states that the increasing numbers of both humanitarian crisis around the
world and the amount of organizations dedicated to talk about those topics, have
provoked “media crisis fatigue” and, consequently, diminished editors’ interest.
Despite the difficulties, “seducing journalists” is a very rewarding task for
international organisations. Working with the media raises a charity’s profile and
resources. NGOs reliance on public donations and funding to support their work means
that there is often a direct correlation between public awareness of an institution and its
ability to raise resources.
2.5.- Who are we?
To be efficient and meaningful to external audiences and internal publics,
organisations need attractive and recognized identities. Applegate and Sypher (1985)
claim that strong organizational cultures “create meaning for people” (p. 15) and that is
a likely predictor of effective organizational performance and of a higher staff’s
commitment to the organization.
Michael Noyes explains the importance of defining the “Christian Aid identity”,
saying that “a clear brand gives the organisation personality and values, and it helps
local staffers to know how to react when dealing with a specific situation. So, if the CA
brand says that we have to be outspoken, when they face a crisis they will know how
and when to speak out”.
Hart and Murphy (1998) define brand as “a synthesis of the all elements, physical,
aesthetic, rational and emotional. The end result must be not only appropriate but
differentiated from the brands of competitors” (pp 2-3). Quirke (2002) adds that “in a
world of constant change, a strong corporate brand is one of the few sources of
21
competitive differentiation” (Quirke, 2002 : 42).
There are two main factors that play a pivotal role in keeping employees focus on
the organization’s aim and objectives: the brand, which embodies its shared values and
culture, and internal communication. These two elements are interconnected and, as
Schmidt and Ludlow (2002) point out, “internal culture is the most deep-rooted and
long term dimension of branding” (pp. 25).
Rose (2005) assets that branding “acts as rallying point, a flag hoist on the social
battlefield. It is recognized from a distance, it identifies whose side you are on” (p.188).
The scholar claims that it is a “short cut” to public engagement, because if somebody
has support an organization before, as long as he or she sees the name of its favourite
agency supporting a cause, this person will back it too.
A key aspect to become a recognisable “flag in the battlefield” is to have powerful
visual logos and brand ownership symbols. Clifton and Simmons (2003) define logo as
“the signature of an organisation and the basis for a consistent visual identity” (pp. 118).
Conscious of its role, CA changed its logo to make it more visually attractive and
easier to remember. Michael Noyes acknowledges that the new behind aims to stress the
concept Aid over Christian: “The idea is to emphasise that we are an aid agency with a
Christian background and not a Christian agency that does aid”.
3.- Methodology
A key factor to the success of this dissertation has been the full communications
access I was given to CA’s staff based both in its London’s headquarter and in its
regional offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In order to illustrate how international organisations do communicate with their
internal and external publics, I chose to do a case study. Talking about the strategies
22
associated to qualitative research, Creswell (2003) explains that case studies are those
“in which the researcher explores in depth a program, an event, an activity, a process.
(…) The cases are bounded by time and activity, and researchers collect detailed
information using a variety of collection procedures” (Creswell, 2003 : 15).
I selected the charitable organisation CA as a subject of an extensive research
because it has a worldwide network of partners all linked by communications. It has
developed several cutting-edged communication initiatives in order to build its brand
name and disseminate its messages to its internal and external audiences.
Based on the specific characteristics of my case study, I selected in-depth
interviews as the most appropriate method to collect information about CA’s
communication strategies. Berger (2000) explains that interviews enable researchers to
obtain data that they cannot be collected by observation alone. He names several kinds
of interviews found in scholarly research, among them, “informal” and “semistructured”
interviews. I used the first approach in my first round of meetings with CA’s staffers.
These interviews, according to Berger, are generally used to introduce the researcher to
the topic studied. In secondary meetings I conducted “semistructured interviews”, using
a written questionnaire but maintaining the casual quality of the first conversations with
the interviewees (Berger, 2000 : 112).
Additionally, I interviewed regional office staffers based in Peru and Kenya.
There, my goal was to compare their views about working across cultures and the
challenges of internal communication with the perceptions of the managers working in
London.
The interviews lasted between 30 and 45 minutes and were taped. They were
either carried out face-to-face or, where geographical or logistical challenges existed, by
Skype. I conducted them in two sessions in London: the first between March 26th and
23
28th and the second between June 18th and 20th, 2007. My interviewees were managers
and senior and junior staff members working in all departments from media relations to
administration.
According to Keats (2000), the advantage of in-depth interviews is that they allow
the interviewer to adapt the questions to suit the informants’ expertise, backgrounds and
languages and it helps to build up a valuable trust and empathy between researcher and
participant. Keats also says that this method facilitates a more controlled situation in
which questions can be rephrased, and reluctant or anxious respondents can be helped
by given encouragement. As a result, the questions covered were left deliberately broad
to enable a wide dialogue to develop.
A secondary method of gathering data was participant observation, which Berger
(2002) defines as a “qualitative research technique that provides the opportunity to
people in real-life situations. It is a form of ‘field research’ in which observations are
carried out in real setting and where there is a lack of control and structure” (pp.161).
The methodology chosen allowed me to present a study of the current challenges
that North-based international organisations face in their internal and external relations
showing how new communication technologies, globalisation and the impact of
intercultural communication have changed the way they work in a fast developing
international arena.
During my two visits to CA I had the opportunity to look around and talk freely
with the staff while they were working. Additionally, I sat on a planning meeting for
“Christian Aid Week” and in a meeting of several senior managers in which they
reviewed an induction given to Latin American officers in the London headquarters.
These opportunities allowed me to discover aspects of the organisation’s practices that I
had not noticed before and formulate more accurate and better-informed questions in
24
my interviews.
Another valuable source of information was the complete access that I gained to
Christian Aid’s internal materials, which enabled me to contextualise the responses
given. I read and reviewed the organisation’s values and brand documentation,
advertisement and educational kits, management’s papers, internal newsletters, strategic
plans and annual reports. During my second visit to Christian Aid’s headquarters, I had
the opportunity to spend several hours browsing the agency’s Intranet. This enabled me
to see at first hand how employees do communicate globally using this new technology
and the real effectiveness and development of blogs and podcasts.
After finishing the data gathering, I identified that the main limitations of my
study were that the CA’s local staff members that I interviewed didn’t feel comfortable
speaking freely about the flaws of the organisation and their managers, especially
because they were asked to answer my questions by the same managers that they have
to comment about. Additionally, I should have interviewed more employees from the
South. Although I talked with three of them, most of the information that I collected
came from the staff working in London. Upon that, the interviews with the people based
on the South weren’t as fluent and in depth as in those with the staffers in the
headquarters because they were conducted by Skype.
4.- Analysis and discussion
In the last 15 years, international organisations have experienced
a revolutionary series of changes that has transformed the way they work and how they
conduct their relationships with their audiences. The main force behind these
transformations has been globalisation and one of its most distinguished consequences:
the development “of a global cultural interrelatedness” (Featherstone, 1990). The
25
practice and role of agencies that work beyond boundaries have been transformed as a
result of the spread of new communication technologies, the reduction of
transportations’ cost and time, and the homogenization of regulations and laws among
countries.
The communication revolution has made an especially relevant impact on CA’s
organisational culture and working practice. This has been evident in the development
of a significant CA’s brand, in the challenges of communicating across culture, and in
the opportunities that new technologies present to the organisation’s internal and
external communication practices.
4.1.- A common voice across boundaries
On any given day, a CA staff member in El Salvador forges an alliance with a
local NGO to create a social network to integrate former members of the street gangs
“maras”, while in Kyrgyzstan a CA employee administrates a loan that will allow local
housewives to set small businesses; meanwhile, in Ireland an agency’s representative
gives a speech at a local church encouraging volunteers to make an extra effort in their
fundraising.
Due to the wide range of faces that this agency has around the world, one of its
major current challenges is how to create a meaningful brand and make staff feel part of
a global institution. In many countries, local officers see themselves more connected to
other civil society practitioners working in the same place, than to their London’s
headquarters. As a result, there is the threat that national offices end up representing the
country to the organisation’s central office, rather than representing CA at the local
level. Therefore, an urgent dilemma is how to create “one Christian Aid” and to be able
disseminate the organisation’s values throughout the organisation, making the staff
26
identify with its identity and goals.
In all the organisation’s documents, stationary and marketing materials it is
pointed out that CA is “bold, outspoken, honest, brave, provocative and passionate”,
these are values that could be easily considered too abstract and politically correct.
Hence, even the CA’s senior managers acknowledge that for both, internal and external
audiences, it is difficult to associate the institution with these concepts. Steve Buckley
explains that “due to the complexities of dealing with issues that can have dramatic
effects on our work in countries dominated by political and social tensions, we cannot
always be as passionate or outspoken as we wish”.
This situation has made it difficult for the agency to convincingly portray itself as
it wants to. Consequently, in several occasions the local officers have demanded CA
follow these declared values and take more risks in defending controversial issues.
However, sometimes it is easy for an employee working in London to make a brave and
outspoken remark about the human abuses in places like Sudan and Zimbabwe but,
because of the global communication environment, these actions can have dangerous
consequences for the CA’s local officers and partners.
Based on his experience working in the former Yugoslavia, India, Afghanistan
and Nigeria, Ganesh Ramachandram, Programme Funding and Support Manager at CA,
points out that the agency’s lack of boldness to get involved in complex topics is a
common complaint among overseas officers. “People in the South think that those from
the North have more power to push certain topics, so they demand the British staff to do
more”.
The gap between what the organisation should do versus what it actually does, is
a permanent tension between the fundraising and marketing teams and the international
division. While the former aims to develop a communications strategy that stresses the
27
practical work that CA does in poor countries, the latter would like to talk about
problematic and urgent matters.
The agency’s research shows that CA’s supporters see it as a safe and secure
organisation with no surprises in its appeals and actions; rather than provocative,
outspoken or passionate. Two main tactics have been developed in order to build a
global brand: a new visual image and an Intranet that is available worldwide.
4.2.- With the aid of an arrow
In 2006, senior managers decided to launch a more appealing and powerful visual
identity and created a new logo that could transmit the organisation’s values. CA’s
2005-2006 annual report explains that the new logo, “gives our publications – from the
smallest flyer to our family of websites –a stronger look. It helps show the urgency
behind the issues we communicate – hunger, child mortality, war, disaster. And it
conveys the confidence we have that we can do something about them”. In addition,
research conducted by the CA ‘s marketing division revealed that the previous
institutional logo “almost disappeared into a sea of logos of charity agencies” and that it
did not serve the goals of a multi-message organisation. Hence, a logo that is based on a
simple red arrow was introduced, which has a shape that implies action and urgency. In
the institutional marketing material this arrow has been used in several ways ranging
from showing statistics, charts and diagrams to explaining how the donated money has
been used and to call for action.
Additionally, in the new logo the word Aid was made bigger than Christian, so it
stands up more. Michael Noyes explains that this “this new visual image helps to
disassociate us from the church and implies that we do Christian acts rather than
theological religious acts. CA will be always owned by the Church but that doesn’t
28
mean that it has to be so strongly identified with it”.
The organisation also embarked a project that will radically transform its
working style and present new threats and opportunities to the goal of building a global
identity; a decentralisation process in which most of the programs will be managed from
the South and the majority of the staff will be based there.
During the 90s, CA was run from the organisation’s headquarters in London and
its senior managers visited the countries where programs were development an average
of twice a year. However, the inefficiency of aid agencies and international
organisations to face humanitarian crisis –the ultimate example, the slaughter in
Rwanda- showed that, in order to be effective, institutions that operate across
boundaries should work closely with their recipients. As a result, since late 90s, CA
started to set up a number of country offices and recruit more people locally. By next
year, national staff will be based in 32 of the 46 countries where CA works.
Decentralisation is a trend present in an increasing number of agencies that deal
with international issues, such as the European Union (EU). “If you want to talk to the
EU’s people who run the Ghana program, for example, you have to contact the staff in
Ghana, because now the decisions are taken at the local level. Therefore, fundraising
opportunities are missed if CA doesn’t have a presence there”, explains Paul Valentin,
International Director at CA.
The unanswered question is who is going to lead these fundraising efforts at the
national level. If local staff members are not key players, the decentralisation process
would be just a formal gesture without any actual impact. Valentin states that they will
have a central role, however, because the in this new approach is in its early stage, it
cannot be fully analysed.
The fact that working at a local level and listening to those local employees is
29
becoming a vital issue for global institutions, dismisses the critics that argue that
globalisation will erase local identities and that it will easily impose the work style and
polices that come from the richest countries. As the case of CA shows, international
organisations have at least the intention to give more weight to the local perspectives.
Hemer and Tufte (2005) talk about the “glocal”, stressing the dual character of the
globalization as being “globalisation” and “localisation” simultaneously. The concept of
“glocal change”, according to Hemer and Tufte, refers to social change in a global and
local context. Due to the fact that power no longer resides entirely in the North,
organisations that work globally have had to start reshaping their policies and working
cultures in order to be effective and credible.
According to CA’s top managers, the decentralisation process will enable country
officers to have a louder voice and more power to influence the policy-making process.
However, this has also opened a new range of differences and dissents that make it even
more difficult to build a global brand that appeals to a highly diverse staff disseminated
around the world.
Not surprisingly, as CA opens the discussion, the internal differences are gaining
new importance and visibility; especially because of the background and political
diversity between staffers based in London headquarters and of those working in the
countries offices. For instance, UK employees generally share liberal views about moral
issues and economic and international politics. This profile, however, it is not the same
among overseas staff members. Until a couple of years ago, this reality was not a big
issue, but now, when the agency is encouraging a diverse staff to give their input in the
internal discussion, these divergences could have a pivotal impact.
By having a more diverse staff, the discussion will be richer but not free of
dissent. A good example of this is the debate about HIV prevention –one of the CA’s
30
main programme areas- shows how varied the views could be within the agency. CA’s
set policy about fighting the spread of HIV is the use of condoms, however, many of its
African partners and officers usually have strong links with the Catholic and Episcopal
churches and consider that the correct way to prevent HIV is condemning adultery.
Even though the organisation senior managers state that the views brought by
people from different backgrounds are going to make the policy decision-making
process more authentic and participatory, it will also bring uncertainties. How willing
are CA’s British managers to modify the organisation policies in controversial issues
such as climate change and HIV? Based on his experience working in different regional
offices, Ganesh Ramachandram points out “that even though the communications flow
is more fluent and effective now, people in the central office think that they know
everything and don’t really care much about other voices”.
Henrietta Blynth, CA’s head of Programme Support and Development, explains
that even though the organisation supports self-determination and internal debate, “we
ultimately want to advocate the policies that we consider just and right. So, if somebody
is representing CA at the national level, he/she has to represent its policies, whether
he/she agrees or not with them”. She states that in order to avoid a situation where the
set policies are totally different to what some local officer or national managers would
agree with, all the key policy and decision documents are disseminated worldwide, so
everyone can participate in the discussion and make sure that their views and feedback
are considered.
Due to the still unbalanced power between the managers based in London and the
staff members at the national levels, however, it is very unlikely that their views and
feedback could go from being “considered” to really change the set policies. CA’s
managers should be more proactive in using the internal communications channel to not
31
only disseminate information generated from the centre but also to understand why
some staff members have different views and learn from them. Only then can a true
partnership among CA’s members be developed.
4.3.-Intranet: an internal global voice?
Along with branding, the development of internal communication initiatives has
been a key tool in building a sense of belonging among the agency staff. In April 2005,
CA’s internal communication approach adopted a major change when its Intranet
network was established. It was first set up in the organisation’s offices in the UK and,
since the end of 2006, it is available in the main regional offices. Currently, the Intranet
is the organisation’s main instrument for communicating with its international
workforce and it is the place where staff members share documents and information,
discuss institutional materials, and keep communication and social networks.
According to the 2005/2006 CA annual report, the expectation of the impact of
the Intranet is high: “it means that CA staff will be able to work together far more
easily, no matter where they are in the world. Following an emergency, for example, a
site can be created within the hour, which staff will be able to access and contribute, no
matter if they are in London, in a church building in Scotland, out in Afghanistan, or on
an international flight”.
Steven Buckley explains that until a couple of years ago, the institution was very
centralised and it didn’t rely much on communications technology: “there was a big
communication silence and teams and divisions didn’t talk to each other”. According to
Buckley, since the CA’s Intranet was established, the debate across boundaries has been
encouraged; he also predicts that its impact will be bigger when the agency’s network
becomes available worldwide. So far, besides the offices in the UK and Ireland, the only
32
overseas bureaus with full access to the Intranet are those located in Kenya and
Honduras. However, the goal is that by the end of 2007, every office will have access to
this network, no matter where they are based.
Despite this enthusiastic approach, staff members based abroad are wary of the
real use that people in the South could make of the new communication technologies.
Ganesh Ramachandram, originally from India and now working in the Nairobi office,
complains that in the London headquarters managers mistakenly think that in the South
people work in the same conditions and with the same priorities than in the North.
“They don’t realise that in many places there is no Internet connection, that we don’t
always work in proper offices and that, on occasions, we don’t even have access to
clean water”. Sofia Gavarino, a Peruvian working as a programme manager for Peru
and Bolivia, also stresses that in nations in the South the priorities are different and
regional employees are so overwhelmed with work and demands from the central
offices, that they don’t have time to browse on the Intranet.
Another barrier that makes it difficult to meet the goal of having the entire
workforce communicating with each other through the Intranet, is that top managers,
especially at the local level, belong to a generation that feel less comfortable and
confident sharing information and working entirely online. In the South, the level of
technology literacy is lower than those countries in the North.
Nevertheless, access and cost are the main problems that international
organizations face while creating a worldwide Internet network. There is still a huge
digital gap between the North and the South. For instance, 30% of the online population
lives in the U.S and China. The 15 nations with the highest access to the Internet (all
from the developed world, but Mexico, Brazil and India) collected 99% of the online
population. In many African nations, the monthly cost of Internet connection is about
33
US$100, whereas in the United States it is less than US$ 10 (Gher, 2007 : 327). Foley
(1998) adds that Internet users are overwhelmingly male, white, middle class and
young.
A good example of the technology gap is the case of Ethiopia. CA wants to
develop a worldwide, equal access network and yet in that country the Internet
connection is very low and accessibility is very expensive. Therefore, employees are
unable to use email and Skype regularly. This shows how idealistic the organisation can
be.
To encourage the use of the Intranet, CA has appointed a specialist to train local
employees in the Intranet benefits. The agency is planning to create the position of
“Intranet editor”, a decision that could raise questions of how free this network really is
if somebody is monitoring it. However, this person could also help to make it more
dynamic and useful; for instance, between June 18th and 25th, the Intranet’s home page
was not refreshed and the main information wasn’t updated. Despite these shortfalls, all
the staff interviewed in London state that the Intranet is a pivotal working tool for them,
even though it is used mainly to share and store documents. As a result, the CA Intranet
is not yet a fully communication tool, but primarily a handy and safe place where
employees keep some important work material.
In addition, blogs and podcasts –available on the Intranet- are also being used
and promoted by senior managers to communicate with the global staff. London-based
officers write the institutional blogs, the topics range from a partner sex education
project to a staff member trip to Tajikistan. In the podcasts, CA’s members can listen to
a conference given by a Chinese pro-democracy journalist and to the latest CA staff
meeting.
34
Senior managers commission some staffers to write these blogs, but ideally in
the future people within the organisation will spontaneously post their own online
diaries. However, this idea could create the dilemma of how freely employees can
express their personal views, considering that they are sponsored by the organisation.
Steve Buckley believes that institutional blogs and podcasts should follow some rules
and not contradict the CA’s official positions and policies. In that regard, these blogs
are not the “employees’ voice” like CA’s managers proclaim, but just another
institutional communication channel.
Additionally, some members of the organisations have set up profiles in the
online social networks Facebook and MySpace, where people outside the organisation
can learn about and discuss CA’s sponsored topics such as the “Cut the Carbon”
campaign and Fair Trade.
The organisation has also developed two newsletters to communicate with its
internal audience. One of them, “Majority World News”, comes out daily and is
available on the Intranet or can be sent by email to the regional offices. This newsletter
gives a brief summary of internal and external topics concerning CA and every article
has a link to get further information (including related blogs and podcasts). The other
newsletter, “The Loop”, is published every two weeks and reports news from the
agency’s directors and senior managers.
Even though these newsletters are highly promoted within the organisation, the
readerships feedback is minimal. “The Loop” is the one that attracts the most criticism
because it is too official, the language is very formal and the topics are too dry. Jo Wade
is one of “The Loop” editors and even she thinks that it is not very interesting and
effective. “If I weren’t involved in the writing, I would probably just skim over it”, she
acknowledges.
35
It is clear that these two newsletters need a more appealing style and that the
writers should seek out stories, ensuring the coverage of the organisation’s big issues
and including more voices from the South. To make them more diverse is an urgently
needed improvement, especially because many staff members at the local offices
complain that these newsletters just inform about things that happen in the UK.
If the technology gap is narrowed among CA’s global members, the organisation
Intranet and its features such as podcasts, blogs and newsletters, would become more
effective international communications channels. People from the South could have
access to the same amount of information of those working in London and make their
views and experiences heard. Making new communications tools available for
everybody regardless of where they are from is essential to build CA’s global brand and
identity.
4.4.- The power of a Good Story
In CA, the Communications and Information Unit plays the role of being a link
between the internal relations and media relations divisions, and its work feeds both of
them. The responsibility of the communication officers is to visit the agency’s partners
around the world and produce written and visual reports that show the real impact the
projects funded by CA have on people living in poor countries. These stories include
appealing pictures and videos, journalistic articles and recorded materials.
The agency’s Brand Book calls them “parables” and explains that they “are told to
illuminate a point. We –as readers- become involved in the story, get caught up in its
twists and turns, wonder how it will end. But when it does we are left with something
deeper: an underlying truth, a message, a point” (2007 : 3).
After these “parables” are gathered and processed, they are published on the
36
Intranet (as a blog, article, photo album or podcast). Even though the internal
communication strategy sees these stories as a way to show the staff worldwide how the
projects sponsored by CA make a real impact on people’s lives, they are rarely read by
the employees. When the staff members have been asked by seniors managers about
how deeply they read these stories, most of them acknowledge that they just skim them
and check the headlines. On many occasions the stories featured didn’t meet the
objectives of the fundraising, marketing and media relations departments, which are the
divisions that generally use them to talk to the external audiences.
To enhance their impact on the external communications and fundraising
initiatives, the team was moved from the supervision of the international division, to the
marketing division. “This restructure allows communications officers to know what
kind of stories the marketing people need, so they can search for a specific angle instead
of just bringing whatever they can get”, explains senior manager Paul Valentin.
A key aspect of these parables is that they “put a face” to the story, showing, for
instance, how a loan project has allowed a single women to send their kids to school.
Amanda Farrant, a communication officer who gathers cases in Central Asia and
Bangladesh, points out that they look for “an upsetting and real story, but without
making people lose their dignity. It is not about people suffering, but empowering
them”. She points out that a big obstacle to her job is that while local partners and CA
regional staff want to promote experiences of people resolving their problems by
themselves, the fundraising and marketing people prefer stories showing people
suffering that will catch the donors’ and media’s attention. This contradiction sheds
light on the conflicting views of the role of CA as a charity organisation: the marketing
and fundraising managers and practitioners push for a communications approach based
on explaining to donors and supporters how their money has been spent and the impact
37
it had. The international division officers, on the other hand, advocate denouncing the
social, economic and political injustices taking place in the South.
With this goal of making the story gathering process more effective and
appealing, the organisation has started an internal debate about if it should do
communications at the local level. The discussion has raised several questions: should
CA have a communications officer based in key countries? Should this person just
collect stories or also do media relations with local reporters? Should CA get involved
in local communication or is it the responsibility of local partners?
So far, the agency has decided to recruit a communication specialist based
abroad who understands what kind of stories are going to successful in England, but
who also knows what interesting experiences are available at the local level. To this
point, the creation of two local communication specialists has been approved: one in
Asia and other in the Congo, both of them will be recruited at the local level. The
objective is that these officers will gather not just stories about specific cases but also
some that will portray the situation of the country as a whole.
However, there is the real threat that this communication specialist ends up
spending more time talking to national journalists (on behalf of CA and its partners)
than collecting stories. And if the communications specialist is successful in influencing
the local media, doesn’t that imply that CA is getting involved in the country’s internal
problems? Is the organisation willing to start having a stronger voice in the local
political and economic disputes?
Steven Buckley argues that because many of the fundraising decisions are made at
the local level, the organisation should also have a bigger presence in the countries
where it works. Caroline Wood, a communication officer working in East Africa, has an
opposite opinion: “CA’s audience is UK based, so we shouldn’t get involved in local
38
communications, that is the partners role. This is the way that we have worked so far
and I think it is correct. National civil society has to have a strong voice and promote
their own work”.
4.5.- A further impact
CA’s partners stories are used as pivotal parts of the fundraising and marketing
strategies, when the agency’s officers visit churches and support groups in the UK and
Ireland, they present these stories motivate and illustrate the organisation’s work. The
marketing division also creates its advertising based on these cases.
It is the media relations division that depends the most on the appeal and
reliability of these stories to do its job. John Davison, CA’s Head of Media, explains
that the agency has developed a journalistic approach in its contact with reporters. Most
of the staff working in that division has a background in journalism (the rest are public
relations practitioners that organise events and visits) and have experience of how to
present the issues to the media in a more interesting and appealing way.
Davison points out that the typical NGO media approach of saying “we are nice
people and do a good work, so write about us” is over because there are a lot of
organisations (especially in London) that have the same goals and missions. In addition,
in the latest years the Western media have grown increasingly wary of the groups
behind NGOs and their agendas. Therefore, CA’s media strategy is to illustrate its work
throughout telling personal and real stories of people whose lives have been
transformed. “We know that if we don’t have an interesting and novel story, CA won’t
be get noticed in the very competitive British media market”, points out Davison.
This approach in media relations has been very effective for international
organisations that want to raise awareness about certain issues. However, there is a risk
39
of presenting only dramatic stories to shock the public and the media, rather than really
inform about those concerned. Some of the stories presented by CA can make an impact
and upset people, however, they don’t really inform about the causes and long-term
solutions of those problems.
UNESCO’s handbook for media relations recommends that the best way to
capture the press’s and public’s attention is by showing a real case. It also states that a
news is almost never about an institutional process, but about cases based on substance
(Barton, 2003 : 9, UNESCO).
After reviewing the coverage that CA has attracted in the last few months, it is
clear that the most profiled stories are those that talked about natural disasters. Indeed,
in many of these cases, the media relations department didn’t even have to contact the
journalists, CA was approached by them. The agency gets media attention if it makes a
controversial appeal or gives an opinion about a dangerous issue, for example when CA
called for humanitarian intervention in Darfur or criticised Zimbabwe’s government.
Despite the importance of story gathering on their work, the media relations
division is very critical of how the communications officers collect information.
Davison complains that they sometimes act as “gatekeepers”, blocking the
communication between CA’s divisions and partners. Another point of dispute is that on
several occasions, journalists have discovered that some of the facts presented in these
stories weren’t accurate. Those embarrassing situations have damaged the agency’s
credibility, one of the most valuable assets of an organisation’s public image. “The
problem is that the communication officers don’t have a journalist’s training. However,
after they started working under the marketing division, our coordination and the quality
of their work have improved”.
40
Currently, the Media Relations team asks the Information and Communications
Unit for specific stories that can be sent to targeted media markets such as women
magazines, regional newspapers, church newsletters and TV shows for young people.
This strategy has been very effective, particularly among teen magazines that have a
small staff of reporters and are willing to run a “ready-to-publish” article sent to them a
well-known institution.
CA finds that it is very difficult for national media to commit to sending
reporters into the field, so the Media Relations division bombards them with relative
information to motivate editors to cover issues that take place in the South. Once
journalists have arrived in the filed, CA local officers and their partners can act as “tour
guides”, helping to locate and frame the necessary issues.
The most important annual event for the organisation is “Christian Aid Week”.
During that week, the Media Relations team seeks especially powerful stories to catch
the press attention and produce news-worthy reports about issues that are already in the
media such as climate change, trade injustice and immigration. It is key for the
organisation to be covered during that week, because it is the most lucrative time for
fundraising.
The week of high profile events is also an occasion to create internal activities
that will help to build a sense of institutional belonging. This year, the London
headquarters asked all CA global staff officers to organise an event in which school
children plant trees in public places. According to the organisation records, 20 offices
overseas got involved in the campaign and gained local media coverage.
4.6.- Communicating beyond boundaries
While CA starts recruiting people at the local level and letting the views from the
41
South have a bigger influence on the institution, it becomes more diverse and
multicultural. It makes the agency culturally richer and truly global, however, it also
presents a new set of institutional challenges and threats, which range from cultural
misinterpretations to confronting different working practices.
Zaharna (2001) points out that people from “future-oriented cultures” (e.g.
Americans and British) may easily engage in future oriented activities such as
forecasting, scheduling, planning and strategizing. In contrast, past-oriented cultures
(e.g. Africans, Arabics and Latinos) might find planning awkward and, in fact, have
considerable difficulty visualizing activities that have not yet happened. Zaharna adds
that past-oriented cultures may look for extensive historical contexts for all aspects of a
project, while a future-oriented individual may consider it as time consuming and
irrelevant.
Even though these categories could be considered too broad and that many follow
of the stereotypes about cultural differences, one of the main complaints of the staff
based on London is that local officers don’t plan in advance or forecast their work as
much as they do. Although there is no evidence of which style is more effective, this
dissimilarity has caused tension in the agency because employees from different
cultures also have different expectations in terms of deadlines, working practices and
time management.
Sofia Garavito, has worked in the London and Lima offices and she is a
knowledgeable witness of the cultural differences among the agency’s officers.
Comparing the working style between Latin Americans and British, she states that the
main difference is the Latino informality in terms of accountability, planning and setting
goals, timing and punctuality. In addition, she says that in England the employee’s
personal life doesn’t interfere in his/her job. “The only thing that matters is your
42
professional performance, so your personal issues are not a justification for not meeting
the organisation’s goal. In Latin America, managers and colleagues are more flexible
and informal”.
As regional administrators working in London, Alastair Cunningham (Irish) and
Christine Bui (French Canadian) confront daily cultural differences. They argue that for
people who haven’t worked for an international organisation or in the UK,
understanding the demands in area like accountability is very hard, so they should be
trained about procedures, which are difficult to translate to different cultural contexts.
“The UK staff members should have some intercultural training as well”, adds Alastair
Cunningham.
Additionally, when newcomers start working for the agency, they don’t receive
any specific cultural induction. Jasmine Huggins, CA’s Decentralisation Manager for
Latin American and the Caribbean, believes that the intercultural barriers are not critical
and that people who come to work at the agency are willing and even attracted by the
idea of being exposed to different cultures. From the CA’s office in Nairobi, the
Programme Officer Steve Wathome gives a different opinion. “I think there are people
on London who are not always culturally sensitive and that affects the work of the
whole institution. The main differences are related to the working culture and time
management. For instance, if I have a question or want to improve some procedures,
even though I am working overseas, a manager would just say: ‘Look at the documents.
Everything is there’. But things don’t work that way in other countries. People there are
more individualistic, if a problem is raised they would say: ‘that is your issue’, while in
the South, people tend to see it as ‘everybody’s problem’”. Only time and experience
will prove if the decentralisation process helps to overcome the cultural differences or if
more regular contact will increase friction.
43
CA’s experience proves that among cultures from the South there are
dissimilarities as well. For example, in Asia and in Middle Eastern countries, the issue
of trade and business is more straightforward and there is not an initial bias against
them. Whilst in Latin America, civil organisations are suspicious about American
imperialism and capitalism. Topics that concern and trouble people vary greatly among
all countries.
There are also administrative and practical cultural problems. Michael Noyes
gives the example of how an apparently simple issue like insuring employees can
become a cultural dilemma. “For me, my family is my wife and kid, but for an
employee in an African capital like Kinshasa, his family includes the cousins that live
with him and who came from the countryside. Should CA consider them as part of his
family? And in Afghanistan, how many wives do you include?”.
Other cultural differences can raise even more complicated dilemmas. In
Afghanistan, for instance, one of CA’s Programme officer is a very active and
committed civil society activist who doesn’t allow his wife out of the house without his
written permission. That is a very complex matter for the organisation because it
advocates gender equality. The official reaction to this specific situation is simple but
questionable: “Well, nobody is perfect. Besides, he hasn’t stopped any of our program
regarding women’s rights”, responds Michael Noyes.
Without a doubt, the main barrier for an organisation that works beyond national
boundaries is language. English is the CA’s official working language and even though
the main documents are translated in local languages and that in order to work in the
agency the employees have to have at least a basic knowledge of English, language is
still a controversial and troubling aspect.
44
Henrietta Blyth explains that in Asia and Africa when CA’s officers have to
speak English they see it as a learning opportunity that will help them in their careers,
while in Latin American, where there is a long history of U.S. dominance and
intervention, English represents “American imperialism”. Latin American staff
members usually argue that “civil society people don’t speak English. If they learn it
they would be working for the ‘enemy’”.
In a staff meeting held on Monday 18th at the CA headquarters, issues of language
and working culture were raised. On that occasion, four senior managers and six
officers discussed a not very successful month-long training session held in London for
Latin American officers. The debate was about if it would be more effective to hold
future training in Spanish and in Latin America. Even though everybody in the meeting
spoke at least once, the final decision –to start doing some trainings at the local levelwas made based on the opinion of the two more senior managers. Interestingly enough,
during the meeting nobody made any reference to what was the experience of the Latin
American officers during the training.
Based on the interviews conducted and some first-hand observations in the
London headquarters, I believe that despite the fact that the ongoing decentralisation
process has transformed many aspects of the organisation, the main decisions are still
made at head office. For instance, the debate about how to build a meaningful global
brand has been totally conducted from the nucleus. It is clear that the organisation opens
the discussion to overseas employees when the issues affect the international offices
directly; otherwise, the debate is held and decided at the centre. “In the end, the regional
staff have to understand that we are a UK and Irish organisation that does international
work, not a global business institution”, justifies Steven Buckley.
45
5.- Conclusions and recommendations
CA is under a very interesting transition in which its internal and external
communication practises are being placed under intense scrutiny. The CA case shows
that the most powerful tool in developing global and integrated communication
initiatives is building a significant, relevant and credible brand. Despite the fact that
many NGO practitioners and civil society activists consider the idea of having an
“institutional brand” more suitable for business companies than for NGOs, developing
an organisation’s image is key for the success of any agency that works beyond
boundaries and in an environment highly influenced by globalisation.
In order to be successful, these institutional images and values have to be
consistent and coherent with the organisation’s actual actions and messages. In CA this
is not always the case. It mainly focuses in showing the practical impacts of the
donations collected, but doesn’t dedicate the same amount of energy and resources in
denouncing human rights abuses and economic injustices in the countries the donations
support. As a result, many CA staff members in the South don’t see this agency as brave
and as passionate as its values proclaim.
Despite a decentralisation project that, eventually, will give more weight to
voices coming from the South, CA still needs to understand that getting regional offices
more involved in the decision-making process means more than just allowing them to
give their opinion in the newsletter or guarantee good Intranet accessibility. This agency
should include their worldwide employees in all the important discussions, not just in
those that will have a direct impact at specific regional levels.
The remaining and unanswered question is if CA London based staff are ready
to accept that regional managers and officers can influence and even reshape the
policies and views that have been predominant for decades. It could seem that the centre
46
is not prepared to be affected by the voices from the South. In all interviews conducted,
managers stressed that, in the end, CA is a British and Irish organisation. Thus, the
agency is implementing democratic communication technologies but, at the same time,
imposing autocratic policies.
A further question is if staff members working at the local level are willing the
challenge the authority from above. According to CA managers and officers working in
Africa, Latin America and Asia, that is rarely the case. Cultures from the South are
hierarchical and CA’s idea of equality in the decision making process is a practice they
are unsure of. As a result, those employees are less likely to challenge their senior
managers decisions.
5.1.- The centre versus the periphery
CA has made significant improvements to make itself a more integrated body.
The Intranet has played a transcendental role in the process and it could have a bigger
impact when staff members start seeing it as a practical working tool. So far, it has
allowed employees from the South to have better access to institutional information and
to be heard in the centre. Podcasts, for instance, are a particularly effective feature of
this network. Considering the predominant oral tradition of Southern cultures, the fact
that people can record their stories and upload them, means that they can communicate
in their own style and stop relying on others to be heard.
Despite all the advantages brought by new communications channels, there is
always the potential risk that an organisation –particularly one that has an international
staff- loses the human value and the face-to-face interaction, putting too much emphasis
on technology. To build a global brand made of real people, tools like the Intranet and
47
Skype should be combined with regular meeting, workshops, gatherings, even though
these are not always the cheapest options.
There is not doubt that CA has an inner circle and a periphery. The best strategy
is to reduce it, rather than pretending that there is not one. Accordingly, many in the
agency have pushed to get more involved in the communication capacity building in the
regional offices, especially because CA encourages its partners to do campaigns, lobby,
and advocacy in their own countries. The approach should be that both the inner and the
outer circle learn from each other, focusing on “what you say” rather than on “how you
say it”. However, in countries where NGO activists are under threat like in Colombia or
Sudan, the role of the organisation is even clearer and more urgent: go further and
directly talk on behalf of them.
The project of having a communication specialist based locally is not without
risk. Even though he/she will inevitably be involved in the local issues and engaged
with the national media, this local officer must always keep in mind that the audiences
located in the UK and Ireland, are very different to those from the South.
5.2.- Seeing the differences
New communications technologies are considered as an effective way to
communicate across cultures and bring people together. These channels can also
produce cultural misinterpretations and misunderstanding the non-verbal
communication signals. This is especially evident at CA, where a great among of its 750
employees don’t have a high level of English. It is common that people who don’t speak
the language perfectly misunderstand the meaning of intonation or typical
characteristics of the British, such as irony. Without a doubt, humour is never translated
well.
48
Experience shows that the first step to tackle this and other cultural differences is
to acknowledge that they exist, something that sounds obvious but many people, instead
of understanding and embracing them, tend to think that, in the end, “we are all the
same”. Once the employees are aware of these differences, CA should start asking the
staff members to choose words carefully, avoid making jokes, using slang and idioms,
listen and value listening. CA should include some cultural awareness induction for new
employees working in an environment where an efficient and sensitive cross-cultural
communication is essential for their success.
Decentralisation and more fluent and daily contacts among staff members help
to understand each other better and make them more aware of their diversities.
Nevertheless, many people wonder what permanent implications this process will have
on CA and other agencies that face the challenge of creating an equal balance between
the North and the South. The impact will be clear and enduring only after this shift of
power is real and not just a “politically correct” statement to please donors or attract the
media.
5.3.- A changing face
The analysis of CA’s ongoing process of transforming its communication
practices shows the impact that globalisation has had in the field of international
communication. It also proves that in this new environment, agencies that work talking
to publics spread worldwide cannot do business as usual anymore.
Without a doubt, the impact of communication technologies on international
organisations has being shaped by culture. Despite the fact that globalisation has created
images, values and experiences dispersed worldwide, local identities are still strong and
have a pivotal influence in how people see the world and communicate across
49
boundaries. This dissertation shows how the cultural differences between employees
from the North and the South, regarding issues as diverse as time managements and
personal relationships at the workplace, can influence the use and impact of new
communication technologies.
By exploring the experiences, successes and failures of CA, it can be predicted the
way that other global agencies will have to follow in a field where every form of
communication (from interpersonal to mediated communication) are becoming
increasingly key to global success. In that context, exploring the new communication
practices and technologies that international organisations adopt in the coming years is a
very interesting and meaningful challenge for future researchers.
50
REFERENCE
Asa, B.A. (2000): “Media and communication research methods : an introduction to
qualitative and quantitative approaches”, Oaks, California : Sage Publications.
Barton, M. (2003) : “Media Relations: A handbook for national commissions and
UNESCO’s partners”, Paris : UNESCO.
Barnett, G. and Lee, M. (2002) : Issues in Intercultural Communication Research in:
Gudykunst, W. and Mody, B. (ed.) “Handbook of international and intercultural
communication”.
London : Sage, 2nd ed.
Berger, A. (2000) : “Media and communication research methods: an introduction to
qualitative and quantitative approaches”,
Thousand Oaks, California : Sage Publications.
Brislin, W. (1981) : “Cross-cultural encounters : face-to-face interaction”, Pergamon
Press : New York.
Clifton, R. and Simmons , J. (2004) : “Brands and branding”
Princeton, NJ : Bloomberg Press, 2004.
Creswell, J. (2003) : “Research design : qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method
approaches”. Thousand Oaks, California : Sage Publications, 2nd ed.
Foley, C. (1998): Human Rights and the Internet, in: Liberty (ed.): “Liberating
cyberspace: civil liberties, human rights and the Internet”, London : Pluto.
Friedman, T. (2006) : “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: New York.
Gher, P. (c2007): Patterns in Global Communication: Prospects and Concerns, in:
Kamalipour, Y.R. (ed.): “Global communication”, Belmont, California: Thomson
Wadsworth.
Giddens, A. (1990) : “The consequences of modernity”
Cambridge : Polity.
Gudykunst, W., Stewart, L., Ting-Toomey, L. (1988) : “Culture and interpersonal
communication, Newbury Park : Sage.
Hart, S. and Murphy, J. (1998) : “Brands : the new wealth creators” Basingstoke :
Palgrave Macmillan.
Hemer, O. and Thomas T. (2005): “Media & Glocal Change
Rethinking Communication for Development”, Buenos Aires, Argentina : CLACSO.
Jenks, C. (2005): “Culture”, London : Routledge, 2nd ed.
51
Keats, D. (2000): “Interviewing: a Practical guide for Students and Professionals”,
Buckingham : Open University Press.
LaRay, B. (1997) “Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication” : in Samovar L.
and Porter R. (eds.), “Intercultural Communication: A Reader”, Belmont : Wadsworth.
Quirke, B. (2002) : “Making the connections : using internal communication to turn
strategy into action”, Aldershot : Gower.
Reynolds, S. and Valentine, D. (2004) : “Guide to cross-cultural communication”,
Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Pearson Prentice Hall.
Rogers, E. and Samovar, L. eds. (1988): “Intercultural Communication: A reader”,
Belong: Wadworth Publshing Company, 5th ed.
Rogers, E. and Steinfatt, T. (1999): “Intercultural Communication”, Illinois: Waveland
Press.
Ross, S.S. (2004): “Towards New Understandings: Journalists and Humanitarian Relief
Coverage”, New York: Columbia University Fritz Institute, Reuters AlertNet.
Schmidt, K. and Ludlow, C. (2002) : “Inclusive branding : the why and how of a
holistic approach to brands”, Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan.
Smith, L. (2000): “Effective internal communication”,
London : Kogan Page.
Sypher, B. Applegate J. and Sypher, H. (1985): Culture and Communication in:
Gudykunst, W., Stewart, L., Ting-Toomey, L. “Organizational contexts in
communication, culture, and organizational processes”. Beverly Hills ; London : Sage.
Wilcox, D. (2005): “Public relations writing and media techniques”, Boston, London :
Pearson/A&B, 5th ed.
JOURNALS
Bob, G (Dec2002/Jan2003) : “Employee engagement after two decades of change”
Strategic Communication Management, Vol. 7 Issue 1, pp.12-16.
Bottazzo, V. (2005) : “Intranet: a medium of internal communication and training”.
Information Services & Use 25. IOS Press, pp. 77-85.
Feathrstone, M. (1990) : “Global Culture. An Introduction”, in Theory, Culture &
Society, Vol. 7, pp. 1-14.
Holtz, S. (Dec2005/Jan2006) : “The impact of new technologies on internal
communication”, Strategic Communication Management, Vol. 10 Issue 1, pp. 22-25.
Holtz, S. (Aug/Sep2005) : “Using employee blogs on the Intranet”, Strategic
Communication Management, Vol. 9 Issue 5, pp. 3-5.
52
Ma, L. (2000) : “Is there an essential difference between intercultural communication
and intracultural communication”. Public Relations Quarterly. Vol. 45, Number 4, pp.
53-61.
Throp, N. and Gupta, A. (Apr/May2003) : “How to regain control of the Intranet”,
Strategic Communication Management, Vol. 7 Issue 3, pp. 6-8.
Sparrow, J. (Feb/Mar2006) : “Balancing and local needs”,. Strategic Communication
Management, Vol. 10 Issue 2, pp- 8-9.
Zaharna. R.S. (2001): “An “In-Awareness” Approach to international public relations”,
Public Relations Review 27, pp. 135-148.
WEB SITE
Christian Aid: www.christian-aid.org.uk / Chistian Aid Intranet.
Facebook: Christian Aid’s group, “Cut the Carbon March”.
INTERNAL DOCUMENTS
“Brand book: 21st century parables”, 2006.
“Decision paper for restructuring the Communications and Information Unit”, 2007.
“Corporate identity”, 2006.
“Majority World News”, (March-June, 2007) Issues: 7-11.
“The Loop”, (March-June 2007) Issues: 17-27.
“Turning hope into action: a vision of a world free from poverty”, 2005-2010 Strategic
Framework.
“Who pays the price?”, Christian Aid’s annual report 2005-06.
CA’s 2007 Advertising Kit.
53
APPENDICE
List of interviewees
John Davison – Director of Media. Heads the department which develops media
strategies and media relations.
Ganesh Ramachandram – Compliance Manager, Programme Funding and
Support. Responsible for ensuring that CA programmes comply with contractual
commitments required by major international donors, covering areas such as financial
management and reporting, procurement and partner training.
Jo Wade – writer of “The Loop”. Collects information from senior managers and
writer one of the internal newsletter.
Steve Wathorme – East Africa Programme Officer. Responsible for managing CA’s
relations with local partner organisations, developing proposals, monitoring progress in
their activities and organisational development in Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria.
Sofia Garavito – Latin America Programme Officer. Responsible for managing
CA’s relations with local partner organisations, developing proposals, monitoring
progress in their activities and organisational development in Peru and Bolivia.
Caroline Wood – Communication Officer, Africa. Collects stories about the work of
local partners in East Africa and writes reports, takes pictures and films videos about
projects funded by CA.
Mike Noyes, Devolved Ways of Working Project Manager. Responsible for the coordination and direction of the project,
overseeing the budget and use of resources dedicated to Devolved Ways of Working.
Contributes to the process of culture change and internal communications.
Henrietta Blyth – Head of Programme Support and Development. Leads and coordinates work across the International Department of the teams providing technical and
practical support to those working in CA country and regional programme.
Andrew Croggon - Head of Latin America and Caribbean Division. Heads the
department which manages CA’s activities in Latin America and Caribbean region.
Melanie Sullivan – International Finances. Responsible for CA’s financial division
and the international budget.
Alastair Salmon – International Technologies. Supports the development of
communication technologies, especially the Intranet and Skype.
Thomas Cole - International Human Resources. Heads of the Human Resources
division which deals with staff’s contracts and supports of employees worldwide.
54
Steven Buckley – Internal Communication Manager. Heads of the Internal
Communication division which carries out all the internal communication initiatives. He
also manages the development of CA’s Intranet.
Alastair Cunningham – LAC region administrator. Coordinates the work between
local officers and partners in Latin America and Caribbean region and the CA’s London
headquarters.
Christine Bui – LAC region administrator. Coordinates the work between local
officers and partners in Latin America and Caribbean region and the CA’s London
headquarters.
Jasmine Huggins - Decentralisation manager for Latin America and Caribbean.
Responsible for managing and supporting the transition process of decentralisation in
the region, including assisting in the set up of new offices, recruitment of staff, ensuring
systems and basic infrastructure are in place.
Hannah Morley – Communications Officer, LAC region. Collects stories about the
work of local partners in Latin America and writes reports, takes pictures and films
videos about projects funded by CA.
Paul Valentin, International Director. Heads the department which carries out all
CA’s development and humanitarian work around the world and which also covers our
policy and research work on global development issues.
Amanda Farrant - Communication Officer, Asia. Collects stories about the work of
local partners in Asia and writes reports, takes pictures and films videos about projects
funded by CA.
55
Interview Sample
Interview with Michael Noyes, Working Project Manager, conducted on March
26th, 2007 in Christian Aid’s headquarter, London, U.K.
-How Christian Aid has changed its work practice in the last years?
-Christian Aid has evolved a lot in a few years. If we look at 15 years ago, all the
organisation’s programs were running from London by a manager who would visit the
countries twice a year.
However, huge humanitarian crisis have changed the way that Christian Aid is
managed. For example, during the genocide in Ruanda in 1994, we realised that
occasional visits and supporting our partners weren’t enough. After this crisis, we
started opening offices to be close to our partners -especially during several
humanitarian crisis in the early 90s-. However, when the crisis ended, we didn’t close
those local offices and the number of our offices overseas grew. This process has been
always very controversial because there was the feeling that because we have our local
partners, we shouldn’t spend our own budget locally.
-One of the consequences of this decentralisation process is that you have a
more cultural diverse staff located in different countries. What challenges did that
process bring to Christian Aid?
-This is an issue of identity. If I work in London, probably everyday I will meet
colleagues that face the same problem as me relating with partners overseas. While, for
a Christian Aid’s staff member located abroad, his daily relationship won’t be with
people from the organisation but with local partners and civil society workers. So, local
personnel ending up representing the country to Christian Aid, rather than representing
56
the agency in the country. In that context, we need the all Christian Aid staff feel part of
a global organization and identify with it.
-How do you encourage people to feel part of a single organisatiom?
-That is own current challenge. We do that through inductions and orientations
and by having the right guidelines and managers. Accordingly, Christian Aid is now in
the internal process of discussing what is the “Christian Aid identity”.
A clear brand defines the organisation personality and values and it helps
somebody in our office in Sri Lanka, for instance, how to react when dealing with a
specific situation. Therefore, if the Christian Aid brand says that we have to be
outspoken, then our officer in a country that faces a crisis will know how and when to
speak out. A clear brand also differentiates Christian Aid from other organizations.
-How do you deal with the issue of different languages spoken within the
organization?
-Christian Aid is a British and Irish organization that works internationally.
Therefore, its working language is English.
The issue of language is interesting. In Asia and Africa, for example, when our
officers and partners have to speak English they would say: “I like to practice my
English because it is good for my career”. While, in Latin American countries like
Colombia, English is the language of “imperialism”.
-Does Christian Aid have different points of views regarding policy issues
among its partners?
-Generally, all Christian Aid staff members, whatever their backgrounds and
nationalities, came from a middle class liberal mind set. So, you don’t need to ask them
about their opinion about the war in Iraq or about HIV prevention, for example, because
if they had a different one, we wouldn’t be working here in the first place. However, as
57
the organisation decentralizes and recruit more locally, we may have people with
different points of views. For instance, when our head of policies went to our office in
Nairobi, he was shocked by the number of staffers who are pro-Bush and agree with the
war in Iraq.
-Probably in issues like the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV
Christian Aid also has an internal debate.
-Yes. Now that we have more staff from Africa, we have more people that are
not convinced with the organisation’s approach to HIV. Our HIV officers in Etiopia,
who have strong relationships in his churches, would say: “I understand Christian Aid’s
policies but the real issue is to condemn adultery. My Church says that I can’t promote
the use of condoms, so I can challenge it”.
There are other issues as well. In terms of women’s rights, for example, even
though we have a very positive towards gender equality in recruitment, how do you do
it in a country like Afghanistan? Can you recruit a good Afghan female program
officer? If you do, would our staffers there work with her?
Those are not easy questions. For instance, we have a highly reputed and committed
Afghan programme officer –who worked throughout the Taliban period and put his life
at risk- who doesn’t allow his wife out of the house without his written permission.
-How do you deal with that dilemma?
-In that case, we ending up saying “well, nobody is perfect”, because he hasn’t
stopped any of our program regarding women rights. Regarding our HIV policy, our
views could change. Until 5 years ago, the Christian Aid’s policy was set by ten
European liberal programmers. Now, half of the people discussing the topic come from
a different background. We are encouraging our staff overseas to be more engaged in
our policy’s debate and to speak with their own voices.
58
-Is Christian Aid prepared to let them to influence our policies?
-We don’t have the answer to that yet. We hope we won’t challenge our
position, but what if they do?
-Do you try to make partners to change their policies?
-In the case of HIV’s policies, Christian Aid, rather than just cut the funds of
dissident partners, encourages them to talk to other church leaders who have different
opinions. At same time, although we support their self-determination, we want to
achieve things that we think are right.
-Does the fact that this is a Christian agency help or hinder its work?
-Being a Christian organisation can be a good thing in some countries and a bad
thing in others. However, we want to highlight that we are an aid agency with a
Christian background. We are not a Christian agency that does aid, but an aid agency
that happen to be Christian.
-What other cultural differences do you face while working worldwide?
-Several. For example, Christian Aid insures its employees and their families.
For a British employee, family is his wife and a kid, but for someone from Nairobi,
because it is the capital city, he probably has a couple of cousins or other relatives living
with him. Should we consider them part of his family? In Afghanistan, for instance,
how many wives should be included?
-Christian Aid has a media department in its headquarters, do you advice
your local partners about communications and media relations at the local level?
-We do campaigns, lobby, and advocacy in the UK and encourage our partners
to do it as well in their own countries. One of the main concerns regarding
decentralization has been to ensure that we do not stealing “partners face”, we don’t
59
want to invade their territory. Nevertheless, in countries like Colombia, Christian Aid
sometimes has to speak up for the local partners because it dangerous for them to do it.
-How do you communicate with the UK public?
-Christian Aid does advertisement when there is a humanitarian crisis and it is
on the BBC news. This means that there are public concern and awareness about it.
Advertising is more successful if you catch the public’s mood.
-Does the agency have to “compete” with other charity organizations to get
media’s and people’s attention?
-Yes, we compete with other ONGs. However, when crisis get very serious, like
with the Tsunami in Asia or the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, the twelve UK
organizations that work together in the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), stop
raising funds individually and appeal to the nation as a collective group. In that
occasions, even broadcasts run our messages for free and all the agencies work under
the umbrella of the DEC. We work together, but only in our fundraising efforts.
-How do you decide what stories will appeal to the public?
-One of the challenges has always been how do we gather the material needed
for our external communication. Currently, Christian Aid’s Communication and
Information Unit has the mission to go to our overseas offices, gather the stories and
give the information to our marketing and media divisions for the external
communication. Their job is to visit our partners with a “story-gathering eye” and be the
link between what happen out there and what our divisions need here. The idea is to get
stories about how does Christian Aid and its partners have changed people’s life and
communicate them to our publics in the UK.
60
* During my two visits to Christian Aid I interviewed Michael Noyes several
times, so I selected the relevant of our conversations.
61