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Most local CSOs in Africa have little or no media and communications strategy, talk less of a media and communications budget. Many of their staff have no communications skills to spread the word about their work and raise vital funds.
This is where we come in. We have an abundance of knowledge about Africa, the media and how to use it to monitor what the AU and its Members say they are doing on our behalf and hold them to account to the standards they have set for themselves. We are experts in designing, developing and delivering audience-driven projects that are compelling and dynamic, effective and sustainable.
You want to collaborate with us? Call us.
Research
Research underpins all that we do at AU Watch. Our research and consultancy services are based on lessons learned from nearly 30 years of development, human rights, and security work. We understand that failure to base policy and programs on sound political, scientific, economic and social analysis can have disastrous consequences for whole communities. We are renowned for our innovative and in-depth approach to research. We ask questions. Plenty of questions. We use research to inform, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of our media and communication projects.
We research and analyse how the AU, its Member States, institutions and CSOs access and use media; we want to know who and what influences them; we want to know their values, belief system and the way they work; we want to know who their publics re, what issues they are working on and why. We also speak to people and organisations to understand why they do the things they do. We conduct promotion and fact-finding missions, host meeting, conduct workshops and seminars and numerous events.
We monitor the media and press for information and trends. And we are big on M&E. To achieve the greatest possible impact, AU Watch engages in evidence-based work. We, therefore, evaluate every initiative in terms of effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, sustainability and impact, with a strong focus on generating key lessons and identifying promising practices for learning. We are continually testing whether our programs and projects are on track to achieve what we want. We ask our audiences whether they feel our interventions are making a difference. We conduct plenty of interviews. This is important to us. we need to know if our programs are meeting their objectives.
Our Theory Of Change
We are always asking, why and how will this make a difference? How can we use media and communication to effect changes at the regional, national and local levels? Who and what else whose should we be working with?
To guarantee that our interventions have an impact, we have to be as certain as we can. To help us do this, at AU Watch we create a bespoke ‘Theory of Change’ for each setting and project. Every situation is different. We do not use a one-brush approach to address challenges. This basically sets out the steps we take to reach our stated objectives. Based on the evidence from our research and analyses, we are able to identify issues and obstacles, opportunities and strategies, and keeping our focus on the impact we want our intervention to have.
All the thinking and research comes together in our communication framework. We make sure that everyone involved in any undertaking understands what it’s all about, why we are doing it and how it will make a difference. We plan how to fit everything together, including media platforms and channels through a ‘communication framework’.