Communicating Results

Overview

Communicating results is fundamental to the work of UNDP. It demonstrates the transparency and effectiveness of the organization, builds influence and trust, attracts new donors and demonstrates accountability to existing ones.

This section explains why and how to communicate and provides guidance and resources on identifying good communications material, key communications products, branding, and crisis communications.

Note: GFPHST can support your Global Fund communications strategy development, work-planning, messaging and content production, including for products not listed below

Why Communicate?

With challenges for fundraising and a demand for greater return on investment from donors, it is essential that programmes communicate their results and impact. Effective communications can:

• Position UNDP as the world’s leading development agency by demonstrating its impact, value for money and comparative advantages
• Position UNDP as a thought leader and influencer
• Strengthen partnerships and donor relationships

How should we communicate results?

• Ensure communications are strategic: What is the aim of communicating results? Communications has a strategic function and should provide insightful information to your intended audience to support programme goals. For example, this could be demonstrating value for money to donors, showing partners and practitioners how the organization provides solutions to solve common problems, or showing to people outside of the health sector the impact of our work on broader sustainable development objectives.
• Put it in context: What is the challenge and how does your solution contribute to our shared vision of a more equitable, healthier and sustainable future? Think about the wider context in your country, region or globally and how your programme relates and contributes to it.
• Impact, Impact, Impact: Communicating results needs to go further than showing commodities, facilities and operations or statistics of people reached and treated. Results communications should explain and illustrate the significance of the intervention for people’s health, health systems and countries.
• Describe it in human terms: Readers or viewers outside of the health sector may be unfamiliar with the terminology or technical details of your programme and will respond better to information that they can relate to in real life. Can you explain the issue in terms of its effect on people’s daily lives, livelihoods and experiences? Can you describe abstract statistics in more relatable terms? How did your programme tangibly improve people’s lives?
• Know your audience: Who needs to see these results and why? Do they prefer a specific online platform, publication or media outlet? What writing style and visuals will they find interesting and inspire them to share your results with others? Be specific about your target audience. Get to know their interests, preferences and media consumption habits and use this knowledge to help you determine the main message, platform, format and timing of your communications.
• Choose when to speak: When will interest in the topic be highest? Is it possible to plan results communications to tie in with relevant launches, key dates, events, programme milestones or topics that are already in the media?
• Be creative: How can results be communicated in an engaging way? Why should someone read, watch or download this communications product? What story angles or formats could help draw a reader or viewer in and retain the information provided? The communications products will be competing with millions of others for attention. How can it stand out? What makes it memorable, useful or inspiring?

Identifying Communications Material

Sometimes, communications professionals work alongside programme colleagues. Where this is the case, it is important for communications people to have regular contact with programme colleagues to fully understand the programmes and to find out what is worth communicating. Programme staff are not necessarily aware of what makes a good story or communications product. Likewise, communications colleagues are often in the dark about what a programme is achieving or what creative solutions are being employed. That is why close communication is necessary to bridge the gap.

Good communications material can include (but is not limited to):

• Positive results, especially significant programme milestones that affect your target audience: Novel approaches, technologies or events, such as the launch of a new service or facility
• A human-interest profile of an inspiring person
• Events or announcements that involve a high-profile UNDP leader
• Programme elements that are linked to broader communications themes at UNDP
• Timely reactions to topics already in the media

Key Products

• Blogs: blogs enable UNDP personnel to showcase their knowledge, expertise and thought leadership to inspire thinking, action or behaviour change
• Stories: human-interest stories use narrative and personal experiences to create awareness and understanding of our issues and programmes and inspire readers to support our mission
• Social media (including video): social media helps us connect with followers and amplifies our key messages, blogs, stories, knowledge products, campaigns and learning opportunities
• Knowledge products: Short knowledge products offer insights and analysis that advance learning or understanding about an issue or practice among specialist audiences

Effective storytelling

• Why is storytelling important? Storytelling is the art of conveying a message or information through a narrative or a series of events. It is an essential tool for communication because it allows people to connect emotionally with the information being conveyed, making it more memorable. For UNDP, storytelling helps create awareness and understanding of the complex issues the organization is addressing and inspires individuals, organizations and governments to support and act on our mission.
• What is a compelling human-interest story? This is a story with human beings at the centre of the narrative. It gives a personal perspective which the reader or viewer can relate to and describes a personal experience that illustrates the challenges faced, the actions taken and the impact of programmes on the ground. Meetings, workshops, conferences, launches, reports and statistics do not, by themselves, make a compelling story. While statistics provide information, human-interest stories provide insight into how the programme works and what has been achieved.
• What technical information is required? It is important to provide the context, the factual background, and cover the basic questions of Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Try to answer these questions without using jargon. Who is at the centre of the story, what is their role, what is the project, what was the impact, why is it important, where is it taking place, who is benefitting, who are the partners, how was it implemented?
• What is the story? If it is not clear how the results can be developed into a story, try the issue/action/impact format. What is the issue the programme is responding to, what are the actions being taken to address it and what difference is it making to people’s lives? A human element that demonstrates a person’s experience of the issue, action or impact can make a story more compelling.

Storytelling Guidelines

• Use plain, non-technical language
• Confirm the basic facts of the story
• Describe the physical setting
• Describe the people involved, including their emotions where appropriate
• Get the name, age (if appropriate) and other relevant facts of the person being interviewed
• Include quotes from partners, implementers and programme users
• Include numbers (of people assisted, of facilities effected, of products procured, etc.)
• Give credit – name your partners and the Global Fund
• Take pictures (of people in action, of the clinic, of the local environment, of the person being interviewed, if appropriate)
• Ensure you have all necessary internal approvals before publishing

UNDP Editorial Style Manual

Photography and Video

Photographs and video can help engage viewers and illustrate complex topics in a simple and effective way. Confidentiality is particularly important when working with images. The guide to using UNDP’s model release form below can help when dealing with issues of consent and is particularly important if you are photographing children and members of key populations. Confidentiality extends to everything featured in the image; care must also be taken not to show names on medicine bottles or medical reports. Medicine and product brands should also not be promoted.

The UNDP Asset Library is also available for your use and includes a selection of UNDP photographs from projects worldwide. You may search for photos by thematic area (such as health), region, country, or keywords. For example, if you’re looking for images for “Day for the Eradication of Poverty,” search for “poverty” or “SDG1.” Click on the photo thumbnail to see the image, description, required credits, and other related photos.

UNDP Asset Library
UNDP Photography Guidelines
UNDP Video Guidelines
UNDP Model Release Guidelines

Social Media

Social media is an important component of UNDP’s strategy and ecosystem for external communications. We use social platforms to support our key messages and campaigns and to promote local, regional and global stories, which are not always covered by mainstream media.

Social media is a good way to directly reach and interact with target audiences online. On social, we have an opportunity to share our messages in a humanistic tone of voice and make UNDP more relatable as an organization.

Information on UNDP Channels, how to get started and some basic dos and don’ts are all included in the UNDP social media guide below.

UNDP Social Media Guidelines

Branding

While UNDP encourages creativity in publication design, basic graphic standards help maintain a consistent corporate identity. The UNDP Brand Manual, incorporating logo use, can be found on the UNDP Brand Portal.

When communicating jointly, the Global Fund Identity Guide for Partners contains practical information about the organization’s identity, placing of logos (including when UNDP logo appears in a publication with logos of partners or government institutions etc.), language and trademark to help partners in their campaigns, events and various forms of communications.

The use of the Global Fund name and logo is subject to the terms set forth in the Agreement to License Trademarks (and the 2016 amendment) between the Global Fund and UNDP, which incorporate the Global Fund Identity Guide for Partners and must conform to certain specifications, explained under the Logos and Other Markings section of this Manual.

Please be aware when using other brands that those organizations may have their own guidelines. See below for a link to the Global Fund identity guide for partners. Always check with the communication focal points for organizations when using their branding and gain necessary approvals.

UNDP Brand Portal

Global Fund Identity Guide for Partners

Crisis Communications

Crises strike both inside and outside the organization. Whether conflict, disaster, or scandal, we must be prepared to immediately reach out to our internal and external constituencies. Crisis communications strategies must have a clear focal point who will manage the internal sharing of information amongst relevant colleagues. Senior management and your relevant communications focal points must be kept informed.

It is important to think about how you are going to respond to a crisis before that crisis happens. That means that it is important to identify areas of risk in your work, or issues that are potentially combustible. If you have a clear crisis plan in place, it will be much easier to respond swiftly and effectively when crisis occurs.

The following is a list of actions to consider for crisis communication related to reputational risks in a Country Office.

Note: The recommendations below do not address media and communications in countries experiencing conflict, insecurity and disasters, which are guided by UNDP’s SOP for Crisis Response and Recovery.

Before a crisis

• Review your crisis communication plan, which should include:
  • An overview of the programme and plan objectives
  • A designated crisis team, including trained spokespeople
  • Defined lines of authority for review, clearance, publishing and media response
  • Internal and external audience analysis
  • Risk assessment and crisis scenarios
  • Potential tough questions and concerns
  • Potential response strategies and key communications channels
  • Product templates (press release, statements, FAQ, factsheets etc)
  • Draft messages
  • Processes for updating the plan
  • Evaluation plan
• Continuously monitor media and social media for reporting related to your risk areas and mentions of UNDP in your country
• Assess the risks of negative media coverage or social media commentary and determine a response strategy. Not all negative coverage is a crisis. But be prepared to respond to media requests, allegations of serious wrongdoing, damaging misinformation or if negative coverage begins to snowball.

Immediate response

• Alert Country Office senior management, GFPHST, Regional Bureau communications and other relevant stakeholders
• Respond to the journalist with a holding line (“Thank you for your inquiry…”). Confirm their deadline
• Gather the facts and see which facts you can share to express UNDP’s position
• Draft a response statement
  • Stick to the facts
  • Include details on any forthcoming investigation and how UNDP is responding to the crisis, as relevant
  • Keep it concise and jargon-free
  • Response does not necessarily need to address all questions asked. Rather than answering each question, send one statement
  • Review and clear
  • Alert stakeholders
  • Meet the journalist’s deadline. “No comment” is not an option because it makes it look like you are withholding information

Medium/longer term response

• Check published story for factual accuracy. Only factual errors can be corrected
• Monitor social media and pick up by other media outlets. If a story is picked up or you start receiving multiple requests from media, consider publishing a full statement on your website
• Draft Q&A and ‘if-asked’ language
• Consider internal communications to UNDP personnel
• Consider positive communications products to counter negative narrative (e.g. web stories, factsheets, social media content)
• Consider review of policies/procedures

UNDP Crisis Communications Checklist