Alleviating Poverty Through Human Capital Investments
THE CHALLENGE
Three years into implementing its National Social Investment Programmes, the National Social Investment Office needed to communicate the impact of its work in capacity building, investment and direct support to a mostly dispirited Nigerian audience.
Through the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), N – Power, National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), and the National Cash Transfer, NSIO had managed to directly impact 9.76 million Nigerians but in light of international reports placing Nigeria at the bottom of the pyramid with regards to poverty, NSIO needed a cohesive communication strategy that would get the Office the buy-in of Nigerians.
StateCraft Inc. was engaged to develop content to help reposition NSIO and to appeal to a wider audience outside of its direct beneficiaries.
THE STRATEGY
It has been said that facts may afford people knowledge but it is emotions, in fact that get them to act.
We decided to go back to the drawing board with the NSIO team to reassess the strategic and structural framework of the Office in order to mine the facts and with them, tell a story that tugs at heartstrings.
From policy design to impact, we saw a creative avenue to tie the work of NSIO to the creation of value for smallholder farmers and local cooks, low-income households and higher schools recording low enrolment/completion rates.
We presented the facts of how NSIO had benefitted 9.7 million Nigerians directly and then created emotional stories of how individuals across the country were breaking the poverty cycle.
THE EXECUTION
Materials Development:
StateCraft Inc. combed through the NSIO archives to mine data and facts that demonstrate the conceptual framework, operations, and the impact of the broader areas of the National Social Investment Programmes – GEEP, NCTP, N-Power, and NHGSFP on the livelihood everyday Nigerians.
From these, we wrote, edited and designed a 76-paged Compendium detailing all the social investment programmes from conception to the various stages of their execution.
We have also produced an extract from this Compendium, to be translated into the three major Nigerian languages for an even wider reach.
Further extractions from the Compendium, including animated infographics, quick reports optimised for social media and short video clips are queued for the next phase of this project.
Documentary:
Interviewing over 200 beneficiaries across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, we created a 40-minute long documentary that captures the raw emotions of gratitude of the various entrepreneurs, students, parents, home-makers, graduate and vocational trainees, and smallholder farmers who have the NSIP to thank for the progress they have experienced personally and professionally over the three year period of the programmers’ existence.
The documentary has been cut up to a series of soundbites that highlight each of the programmes as well as their impact from the beneficiaries’ point of view.
THE RESULTS
The first phase of this amplification has been highly successful. We have created cohesive communication materials in form of a compendium, extract of compendium, a documentary, soundbites, graphics and photo stories for the NSIP from erstwhile publicly inaccessible documents domiciled with the NSIO.
With these assets, the NSIO can begin to disseminate information that aligns with its values, resonates with the target audience.
By producing these materials on behalf of the NSIO, we have developed many key insights, networks, and best practices to guide future strategic communications, specifically amplification projects for a human capital investment programme.
