Communicating Development Results in an Emerging “Post-Aid” Era

This chapter reflects on the challenge of communicating development results in an emerging “post-aid era” in which developing nations, as opposed to external donors, assume primary responsibility for ensuring equity, inclusivity and progress for all. Propelled by aspirations of “leaving no one behind” and “making sure that everyone is counted so that everyone counts”, the United Nations Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals represent both a communication challenge, and an opportunity. The chapter argues that the rapid democratisation of access to information and communication technologies and platforms is enabling citizens to tell their own stories, while compelling aid agency communicators, think-tanks and other intermediaries to find new ways to communicate do-gooding as well as communicate to do good. It moreover provides an opportunity to revisit and re-energise the theory and the practice of communication for and about results.