COMMUNICATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS: A PANACEA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Abstract
For emergent economies such as Nigeria and much of Africa, development has become not just a central foundation but also the realpolitik of democratic governance; to the extent that scholars have described development as a ‘civil religion’ and a ‘battle cry’ of nations. In the context of the global development trajectory, Communication has been demonstrated to play an integral part in the process and pursuit of development generally. What is empirically unclear is the extent to which actors within the economic sector apply communication towards achieving the vision of sustainable development. The findings suggest that Communication is an integral part of development and sustainability that play significant managerial and technician roles although there is more concentration on the technician role. Some managerial roles identified were advising and reputation management. Some technician roles identified were public information and education,
issuing strategic press releases, organizing summits and conferences, research, monitoring and evaluation. Nature of communicating sustainable development initiatives was mainly instrumental although expert were making strides to incorporate participatory forms by engaging in door- todoor campaigns where direct feedback and support of the public can be obtained and sustained. There communication is a fundamental means of address coordination challenges by having external and internal coordination of understanding, which could be achieve only through means of communication.