Rethinking Communications in Development: The Strategic Advantage Hiding in Plain Sight
By Lisa Ritchie, Communications Strategist and Founder of EngagingDev
Strategic communications remains one of the most overlooked and underused drivers of outcomes within development programs. Despite decades of effort and investment into aid effectiveness, many development programs still treat communications as a ‘cosmetic’ or ‘feel good’ function – a designed report, a success story, a positive social media post once the real work is done. This mindset is not only outdated, it results in missed opportunities.
Strategic communications is not a support function
Strategic communications, when properly understood, isn’t just a way to tell the story of a program. It is part of the program. It helps people understand complex reforms. It builds shared purpose. It enables accountability, fosters participation and drives the kinds of conversations that make development efforts more meaningful and more likely to stick.
When embedded from the start, communication elevates visibility, strengthens partnerships, changes behaviours and aligns diverse actors behind common goals.
But none of that can happen when communications is reduced to a last-minute request for ‘something on socials.’ Communications can’t be strategic if it’s constantly reactive – expected to respond to ad hoc demands that take focus and attention away from strategy.
When communications is viewed as the function of ‘make it look good’, rather than a mechanism for making it work better it remains an underutilised, even misused, asset.
Who communications reports to matters
If we want communications to be truly strategic, its role and reporting lines must reflect its importance. Communications should form part of the leadership team and report directly to the Team Leader or equivalent – just as a Chief Communications Officer would report to the CEO in a company or other professional organisation.
Communications is a cross-cutting function that touches everything: stakeholder engagement, reform messaging, donor visibility, community trust. When communications is buried within monitoring and evaluation or reduced to a sub-function under data and reporting it sends the wrong signal about its purpose.
A company or other professional organisaiton would not position a Chief Communications Officer to report to a Data Analyst. Development programs should expect the same clarity of hierarchy and strategic functionality.
Communication is a development input, not an output
Strategic communications is not an output of development, it’s an input. When done well, it builds the connective tissue between policy and practice, between institutions and communities, between what a program aims to do and how that is understood by the people who matter.
Programs that understand this use communication to:
Align stakeholders and sustain momentum.
Manage expectations in politically sensitive environments.
Explain reform clearly and credibly.
Capture learning, including failures.
Amplify local voices and ownership.
Build trust through honest storytelling.
Systems not spin
Strategic communications is not a means to sugarcoat or sell. It makes sense of complexity. It creates space for nuance, for progress and setbacks. It supports the necessary course corrections that are inevitable in the context of development programs.
It is the kind of communication that builds credibility with donors, respect among partners, and trust with the communities programs aim to serve.
Strategic communications in action
In more than two decades of work across bilateral, regional and humanitarian programs, I've seen what happens when strategic communication is truly embedded:
In market systems development, strategic communications demystified approaches, facilitated reflections on what did and didn’t work, and increased influence with business, regulators and donors alike.
In Papua New Guinea, an education program used communication not just to share policy changes, but to reflect their real-world implications back to decision-makers – enhancing uptake and understanding.
In another PNG program, raising public awareness of development outcomes wasn’t a by-product, it was an explicit and resourced end-of-program outcome.
Across Southeast Asia, a regional government-to-government program is strategically building communications into the activities of more than 30 agencies, building a unified narrative that links investments, fosters bilateral trust and signals shared ambition.
At EngagingDev, we work with development programs and donors to design communication strategies that drive reform, strengthen partnerships, and build trust from day one.
Guarding the strategy
Communications cannot be strategic if it is expected to operate on demand with no clear remit, resourcing or respect. Too often, communicators are handed a task: ‘develop a flyer’; ‘make it look good’; ‘can we get this on Facebook?’ – with no context, no strategy and no understanding of the trade-offs involved.
Program teams must stop treating communications as a service for their specific functions and start involving communicators in the work that matters. Early. Often. Intentionally.
Communicators must also be empowered to defend the communications strategy: to say no when a request doesn’t align, and to educate teams about what communications is and what it is not. This isn’t obstruction. It’s what keeps a strategy focused, clear and impactful.
The takeaway
Strategic communications is not a luxury or a ‘nice-to-have’ for development programs. It can support progress towards a program’s outcomes and meaningfully communicate that progress. When embedded with intent, it adds intrinsic value to a program’s delivery, engagement, credibility and influence.
Programs that integrate communications from the start don’t just tell better stories – they achieve stronger results. Let’s stop sidelining one of the most strategic assets we have.
