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After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Healthcast: Global Forum on Health and Development at the Summit of the African Union

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This initiative revolving around a video conference ("healthcast") was part of the second African Union (AU) summit, which took place in Maputo, Mozambique, on July 10 2003. Plans to scale up action against HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis (TB) in Africa were endorsed by African heads of state and global partners in the international video conference, which was sponsored by Exchange and the Interactive Health Network (IHN).
Communication Strategies

This interactive discussion drew on video conferencing as a communication tool to connect people around the world and to highlight the need for resources, dialogue, and support - especially for women - in the context of HIV and AIDS, malaria, and TB. By linking into the meeting of the African Union, the video conference was designed to bring the world into the meeting and the meeting into the world, and to help push commitments on action around HIV and AIDS.

Representatives from 15 countries participated in the exchange, including the heads of state from Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Chad, Uganda, Lesotho, and Algeria. International participants included Kofi Annan, United Nations (UN) Secretary General, and leaders from the World Health Organization (WHO), The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Roll Back Malaria, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

IHN and Exchange teamed up with the World Bank Development Learning Network, the WorldSpace satellite radio system, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, Canal Saude (Brazil), and Television Mozambique to ensure that the session was seen and heard throughout Africa and around the world. More than 20 sites in Africa were able to view the videoconference live, and it was made available on the Kaiser Network website. WorldSpace radio broadcast it throughout Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, and rebroadcasts were done by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, with television programming throughout Mozambique and Brazil.

Development Issues

HIV/AIDS, Health.

Partners

The Exchange programme supported the video conference. Exchange was a health communication programme hosted by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Healthlink Worldwide and funded by the United Kingdom (UK) Department for International Development (DFID).

Sources

Email from Andrew Chetley to The Communication Initiative on August 18 2010; and the Exchange website and the WHO Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) website - both accessed on August 26 2010.