Media and aid
Make poverty history 2005 campaign evaluation
Was the MakePovertyHistory campaign successful?
Authors:
M. Andy; C. Culey; S. Evans
Publisher:
Make Poverty History, 2006
This evaluation assesses the impact of the MakePovertyHistory campaign and how successful it was in meeting its objectives.
The report highlights a number of achievements including:
- public mobilisation as the greatest achievement
- the campaign dominated the year with massive support for the campaign from politicians of all parties
- the campaign could point to real achievements on aid and debt; on trade, there was felt to have been little practical success
In light of these successes, four areas were identified where the coalition had faced challenges. Issues raised were:
- the impact of the leadership model. Whilst this was felt to be vital to holding the coalition together, it led to slow and reactive decision-making
- the challenge of coordinating responses in a broad coalition. This was difficult because of the lack of a central spokesperson, but also because of differences within the coalition on how to communicate progress and engage with government
- the extent to which public momentum could be sustained and the work needed to maintain these levels of interest
- the extent to which the coalition was seen as a British campaign, rather than an international campaign. In the run-up to the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, Live8 is felt to have had significant influence with other G8 governments
Lessons learned include:
- coalitions need to understand the trade-offs between leadership and consensus
- planning strategically – for the long term - is different from tactically responding to external conditions. Coalitions need to do both
- different organisations have different needs. As coalitions grow, they need to accommodate diversity
- mass-market popular communications, backed up by solid lobbying and traditional activism, have significant political impact
- campaigns need to plan to take new supporters on a journey from interest to activism
