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Key Message

Relationships build the trust necessary to bridge the gap between knowledge and action for sustainable development.

Influence, Engagement and Communications

Information by itself doesn't lead to change. Relationships lead to change.

While much of IISD's work on communications and engagement has been developed in the context of networks and partnerships, most of it applies to individual institutions as well. Whether institutions are working together or unilaterally, the following section provides our best knowledge on how they can work towards change in the world. The goal of influenceing, engagement and communications strategies is to change policy and practice. These strategies help to bridge the gap between knowledge and action.

Traditionally, there have been only two types of "communications" strategies: public relations strategies that are focused on raising or managing a positive profile for an organization or corporation; and marketing strategies that "sell" a particular concept or product. Marketing strategies are further divided into two camps: traditional business marketing approaches which require an analysis of customer needs, behaviour and media habits; and social marketing approaches which focus on behaviour change rather than sales, but which still require analysis of target audience behaviour and media habits.

The difficulty with the traditional PR, business marketing and social marketing approaches is that they tend to be focused on, and work best for, single organizations, single products, single issues and narrowly-defined target audiences. But sustainable development is built on the cooperation of multiple stakeholders, partners and alliances, and the intersection of multiple considerations within the spheres of economy, environment and social well-being.

Within the sustainable development community, we need to expand our views of communications in response to:

Fundamental to the IISD's approach to communications is an understanding that it is relationships that leverage change, not information. It matters who says things. In a world of information overload, it is mainly through the people we know that we filter information, assess its trustworthiness and decide what to act upon.

Relationships build the trust necessary to bridge the gap between knowledge and action for sustainable development. Relationships, not information, are at the centre of all communications.

Institutions, networks and partnerships must focus on relationship-building with decision-makers within government, business and civil society around the world. These relationships are built, maintained and managed toward achieving concrete sustainable development goals. Since trusting relationships take time to build and maintain, the advantage of working in networks and partnerships is the connection to one's partners who already have established relationships with decision-makers. In addition, in many parts of the world, there is a great deal of movement of staff from positions with influencing institutions to decision-making positions and back again. Understanding how to maintain those relationships is key to achieving an organization's strategic objectives, both directly and indirectly.

The importance of relationships to opportunities for influence is not new. However, throughout the 1990s, the focus on relationships in communications was often overshadowed by the increased emphasis on information exchange. However, as the Internet matures, research is emerging on the role of information within the broader context of community formation and learning.

Contents

In this section, we encourage you to explore IISD's inter-related work on: