This presentation is about how to best craft messages out of research. It highlights the importance of effective messages in the research informing policy process. Manilla, Philippines 17-18 June, 2013

1. The art of creating an effective message

2. Good research merits good communication
Qualityofresearch
Quality of communication
Communicating Food Policy Research, IFPRI (March 2005)

3. Developing effective messages
When communicating your research, you need to respond to the
following questions:
• Who?
• Why?
• How?
• What?
 But what does “key messages” stand for?

4. How to best craft your messages?
• If you have a completed research, list your key findings and policy
recommendations
• If you have a research proposal, list its objective(s)
• If you have a development project, list its achievement(s)
Now, think about the following questions:
1. What is the objective of your message?
2. Why is this important?
3. Who are your target audiences?
4. What do you want them to do?
5. How exactly should they do it?

5. What does an effective message look like?
“The 4Cs model is a
useful tool for
objectively evaluating
the effectiveness of
many forms of
communication: what’s
working, what isn’t
working, and why.”
The 4Cs model:
1. Comprehension
2. Connection
3. Credibility
4. Contagiousness

6. What does it take to make a message memorable?
• What do you want to say, how and to whom?
 Messages should be designed with audiences in mind and
tailored to fit their needs – identify your audience
 Messages should be memorable, engaging and limited in
number – KISS!!
 Messages should be simple – avoid jargon and scientific
terminologies
 Messages may need to answer the question: ‘why do I care?’

7. • A Attract the attention of the audience
• I Raise the interest in the message or evidence
• D Encourage a desire to act or to know more
• A Prompt action and present a solution
Make your messages pass the ‘Grandma Test’

8. Message pyramid
Communicating Food Policy Research, IFPRI (March 2005)

9. Policy Implications Key recommendations
•What policy changes or actions do the
results point to?
•Supported by evidence
•Must be actionable
•Less direct than recommendations
•Useful when advice not requested or not
welcome
•What does the researcher think should
happen?
•Supported by evidence
•Must be actionable
•Describe clearly what should happen
next
•State as precise steps

10. Remember!
All great ideas are simple at heart!

11. Example 1 – MIDP 2012
Title of Project: Cloth for Work turning old material into resources for poor in rural
areas of India.

12. Example 1 – ORD 2012
Title of Project: Economic incentives for discouraging urban sprawl in
Mexico City
Methodology and/or Terminology
The study will be based on a cost-benefit analysis and on microeconomic theory to determine a cost-effective alternative to
discourage urban sprawl. First, the institutional framework of urban planning, housing policy and urban land policy, will be
described to understand the phenomenon of urban sprawl in Mexico. Then, the problem will be described on the grounds of
microeconomic theory, from the perspective of public goods provision and internalization of negative externalities. Next, we will
describe a set of policy alternatives to solve the problem. For this, a cost-benefit analysis will be developed, assigning economic
values of benefits and costs for each alternative and comparing the net benefit with a base alternative (current situation). For
instance, individual costs of transportation will be estimated as a function of distance, time travel and households’ revenue, while
environmental costs will be estimated by assigning an economic value of the emissions generated by transport. Based on this
analysis, a set of policy recommendations will be assessed in order to find the must cost-effective alternative. Additionally, a case
study will be conducted. A sample of households in a social housing development in the outer area of Mexico City Metropolitan
Area, will be selected to collect quantitative and qualitative data, which will help to validate the results and generate additional
information not available in the data sources (e.g. household location decisions). Interviews to stakeholders and key actors are
considered, in particular to the housing federal institutions, national authorities of urban and regional planning and transport
sector..The research will rely on the use of public access databases containing information about: population (census);
transportation (travel patterns in Metropolitan Area); income and expenses of the households; greenhouse gases emissions;
finance reports for the three levels of government; housing credits given by National Housing Agencies; investments on
infrastructure provision by the three levels of government.
Policy Implications
The team is expecting to produce cost-efficient policy recommendations consisting on a set of suitable economic instruments that
encourage inner-city social housing projects.