This is a selection from my recent case study of two global awareness campaigns focused on maternal and newborn health.
ABSTRACT
Global public health efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality by 2015 are fueled in large part by the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG), MDG-4 and MDG-5, although a large body of scholarly and industry-led literature contends that progress towards reaching MDG-5 have been slow in comparison to MDG-4. At the same time, the public communications campaigns Every Mother Counts and the Maternal, Neonatal & Child Health division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are working to reduce maternal mortality rates and increase access to healthcare for expectant mothers through a variety of communication tactics. This study employs a quantitative and qualitative approach to examine how both campaigns contribute and communicate progress towards achieving MDG-4 and MDG-5 through external communication channels. The results reveal that while both campaigns rarely mention MDGs in traditional forms of external communication, such as press releases, a more integrated social and partner-led communication methods continues to drive the conversation and agenda of global maternal health forward.
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CONCLUSION
This research set out to determine how two organizations, Every Mother Counts and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, were externally communicating their progress towards Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. While different in size and scope, both of these organizations showed similar patterns in press releases. The content analysis of press releases from 2011 through 2013 suggests that these campaigns do not use press releases to discuss either progress or the Millennium Development Goals.
Through an interview with a representative of the Gates Foundation, we determined that the campaign does indeed attempt to communicate these ideas externally. It seems that the Gates Foundation chooses to do this primarily through professional and partner-led publications as well as blog posts on their website. Every Mother Counts also mentions the MDGs more frequently in blog posts than it does in press releases. This suggests that the organizations wish to communicate the messages of awareness of and progress towards MDG-4 and MDG-5 to stakeholders already familiar with their work and messaging, rather than to news organizations. It is yet to be seen whether or not this is an effective communication method.
As 2013 draws to a close, Every Mother Counts, the Gates Foundation, and countless others are scrambling to achieve the 2015 goals set by the Millennium Development project. Many scholars are skeptical as to whether or not these will be accomplished, many claiming they will not be. The next steps – what happens after 2015 – are still unclear. Scholars like McArthur argue that as we near 2015 without reaching these goals, the future of a better world depends on social awareness campaigns driving more engagement from technologically enabled citizens (2012). He suggests that one of the downfalls of the MDG was that it failed to be proactive in translating goals into practice (McArthur, 2012). Perhaps the issue lies not in the inability to reach these goals, but in the goals themselves. As the United Nations and countless NGOs looks past 2015 and move into new goals, it will be imperative to take the lessons learned from the (seemingly failed) Millennium Development Goals if they aim to continue to improve the world in which we live.
