Briefing Paper

Communicating Policy Reforms: Between the Government, the Press and the People

“Communication is critical for successful implementation of policy reforms. It has also been established that although the media is there for government to employ to change the behavior of the people in order to accept and make reforms successful, government should invest insufficiently in strategic communication. Going by hindsight, the people do not have enough confidence and trust in the government or that the reforms will benefit them. The people do not believe that the benefit of the reforms is for them but that this is another avenue for unscrupulous government officials and politicians to use as avenue to loot and plunder public investment and thereby transfer state wealth to a few individuals. Government should therefore be transparent and show the people that the reform will genuinely benefit the people. They should always involve the citizenry early in policy formation or reformation. This will make the job of communicating reforms easier for media practitioners and for consensus building and overall development of the nation.”