Communicating About National Development Programs to an International Audience

Abstract

The national development programs in Finland accomplish great things. These results could be further developed by working together with others, made more efficient by sharing resources and knowledge, and used to gain more global recognition through collaboration.

The purpose of this thesis is to gather best practices for the communications teams working on national development programs into a Communication Playbook. The objective of creating a Communication Playbook is to be a guide that helps plan, standardize, and ease efforts to communicate about these programs to an international audience

Literature about public sector communication, national development programs, and the concept of playbooks for different contexts were used to understand the underlying concepts and as the theoretical framework of this thesis. Semi-structured and theme interviews with communication professionals and program directors were conducted to understand the current practices and challenges faced in the implementation of international communications in national development programs. Then, a discussion for the interviewees was facilitated to co-create solutions for communications professionals working in national development programs in Finland who find value in communicating to an international audience.

Finally, an analysis of the literature, results of the interviews and workshop, and the author’s own reflections on working as a communications trainee at WORK2030 Program (TYÖ2030 Ohjelma/WORK2030 Program) were used to create the Communication Playbook.

This thesis is commissioned by the TYÖ2030 Ohjelma/WORK2030 Program.