Abstract
ABSTRACT
This study uses the Nowak and Wärneryd model of communication campaigns (1985) as the roadmap to present findings from an investigation conducted on the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP), co-funded by the World Bank and Global Environment Facility (GEF). LVEMP s major goal is to arrest the environmental problems affecting Lake Victoria and the 30 million people who live in its basin. LVEMP was launched in 1997 and is being implemented by the three East African countries sharing Lake Victoria (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda). This study is an investigation of LVEMP-Uganda.
The academic impetus to this study is that for development communication approaches to succeed, they ought to be based on principles of planned, and yet participatory communication (Lana, 1989; Nwoku, 1993; Servaes, 1999/2; Jacobson and Kolluri, 1999; Dervin and Frenette, 2001). Based on that conviction, this study set out to investigate the basis of claims made by some scholars of development communication accusing the World Bank of being the present-day proponents of the top-down model of development, and its linear approach to communication (White,1999:34; Wilkins and Waters, 2000:59). LVEMP provided the best ground for me to investigate those claims since it is a project co-sponsored and co-supervised by the World Bank (LVEMP News Bulletin, Vol.2 No.2, June 2002:12).
Whereas the Nowak and Wärneryd model provides an excellent framework in which to present LVEMP s discernible media and communication strategy, the model is by design linear, inconsistent with the thrust of this study, which is participatory or dialogic communication. In order to assess the participatory nature of LVEMP s media and communication strategy, this study uses Dervin and Frenette s dialogic communication model (2001:70-85), supplemented by several other scholars in planned participatory communication (Lana, 1989:179-189; Nwoku, 1993: 16-18; Servaes, 1999/2:88-92).
The findings in this study are presented in chapters four and five. In addition to presenting a situational analysis of the major environmental problems affecting the LVB people, chapter four employs mainly in-depth interviews and document analyses to assess the extent to which the problems affecting the LVB are media and communication related. The rather extensive chapter five uses the models mentioned above to present, analyze and discuss findings from the field. Both chapters are enhanced with graphical and pictorial presentations to enable this thesis tell a more compelling story.