Communication is the Responsibility of All Staff, says EuropeAid Deputy Director General

We’re living in a fast moving world, where information is exchanged faster and more readily than at any other time in human history. At the European Commission, Klaus Rudischhauser, Deputy Director General of the European Commission’s development arm, EuropeAid, wants to develop the capacity of EC staff so that they can get more involved in communicating the ideas and position of the organisation.
Information and knowledge sharing has never been easier. Most people on the planet have a mobile phone and many of us are connected online for much of each working day through our computers. The rise of Social Media, like Twitter and Facebook, have given millions of people access to vast international audiences for their news and views.

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At the European Commission, Deputy DG Mr Rudischhauser says it’s time for staff to develop their own capacity and to be encouraged to take an active role in the organisation’s communication activities.

“We need all colleagues to participate in the communication effort,” said Mr Rudischhauser. “All staff have to develop a communication reflex and they have to think about how to present projects from the very identification of the project.”

“They should think about how to present the anticipated results, how to show what is to be done in such a way that it can be understood,” he said.

Part of the EC’s initiatives, according to Mr Rudischhauser, will include developing the capacity of EuropeAid staff by launching special training.

“We are going to embark on large-scale training of staff in communication, in presenting their work, in presenting their results,” said Mr Rudischhauser.

Mr Rudischhauser’s comments come hot on the heels of a new study, ‘Evaluation of Visibility of EU External Action, June 2012’, which, among other things, found that the EU would benefit from stronger central direction and leadership for communication with clear political strategies and messages, better coordination with other donors and a stronger focus on results.

According to Mr Rudischhauser, the findings of the report have been noted and actions are underway to address some of the identified weaknesses.

What we have embarked on now is to roll out a new communication strategy to address these weaknesses and to re-focus and re-sharpen our activities in order to get the best possible visibility,” said Mr Rudischhauser.

James Mackie, who led the team that conducted the evaluation, explained that one of the central recommendations of the study was that the EU institutions develop some key messages that can be swiftly and clearly communicated, which could better enable the EU to respond to fast moving news situations or emergencies where EU representatives play a role. For example, the study looked at the EUs reaction to the influx of migrants to Lampedusa, Italy, in 2011 and the EU’s response to the uprising in Tunisia the same year. In both cases, the study found that that predefined core messages would facilitate faster response.

“The more you have the clear central messages and a clear leadership set up in advance, the better,” said Mr Mackie.

The study also recommended the EU focus more on results and less on the sums spent, or repeating the often used fact that the EU is the largest aid donor in the world.

“One of the messages that we were picking up was that people got frustrated when the EU was making lots of grandiose statements about how so many billions of euros was going to be spent on this or that,” said Mr Mackie.

“While these facts are true, and there’s no problem with that, what they tend to do is raise expectations,” said Mr Mackie. “To avoid that happening it would be much better to focus on: ‘What are the results achieved?’”

Echoing the findings of the visibility study, Mr Rudischhauser said that a number of key messages are to be drafted to shape how the EC wants to define itself to the outside world and staff would be trained with results-focused communications made a priority.
“The objective is for all staff to know what these key messages are and use them in a consistent way. In order to do this,” said Mr Rudischhauser, “we are going to embark on large scale training of staff in communication, in presenting their work and in presenting their results.”

This collaborative piece was drafted with input from James Mackie, Klaus Rudischhauser, Aurelie Godefroy and Andrew Sherriff with support from the capacity4dev.eu Coordination Team.