Work Package 3 will consider policies related to multilingualism, and it will link closely with the work of Work Package 1 and Work Package 2 to determine best practices relating to multilingualism for government, international and regional agencies, and community stakeholders.

This Work Package, spearheaded by co-investigators at the ODI Global who will take the lead in ensuring that the research is cognizant to, and informed by, practical challenges, and in generating impact.

To produce sustained impact from our later findings we need feedback from end users already in the initial phases of our project.  WP3 will start jointly with WP1 and WP2. At the outset, WP3 will ensure that we engage local, regional, national and international stakeholders from the start, so that their input can be incorporated into from the research design to the dissemination phase. This will be done through a two-part approach, focused on:

1. Engagement and outreach activities which will enable the research to benefit communities in the focus countries, and
2. Communicating research findings to key high-level actors involved in political processes – including but not limited to peacebuilding negotiations – in multilingual conflict-affected contexts.

The first part of our impact strategy centres on creative, locally driven approaches which will utilise findings on navigating conflict through language use. We will work with local media and civil society organisations in the target countries to develop radio and social media materials, including multilingual interactive broadcasts and/or videos. By working with journalists and media producers in each country we will develop tailored, context-specific materials which will address local political and linguistic divisions. This media impact strategy will be directly informed by the empirical linguistic data collected in WP2 and findings on best practices for taking account of multilingualism in conflict resolution efforts. Local media hosts and producers will have a central role in directing how to best engage audiences, though we anticipate also engaging organisations including BBC Media Action and Internews to promote wider reach. As far as possible, content will be published as online resources to ensure longer-term engagement. We will also launch a dedicated Twitter account to update followers on our progress and disseminate research findings. Updates will be shared in multiple languages and formats, e.g. visualisations, to encourage wider engagement, especially among different language communities in the focus countries. We will monitor impact in terms of reach (e.g., number, diversity of people engaged), as well as whether and how they contributed to changed audience perspectives and journalistic practice.

The second element of WP3 will focus on high-level engagement and influencing. To enable uptake of findings on multilingualism and conflict by policy actors, WP3 includes targeted and sustained engagement with public and non-profit policy actors (e.g., regional/sub-regional organisations; international actors including UN agencies and peacebuilding NGOs; state, private and civil society actors at the national and sub-national levels), through a practitioner advisory group that will be engaged at regular intervals throughout the project. We will involve the practitioner advisory group early on, keeping them informed and seeking strategic, targeted insights into how their interests overlap with the research. This approach will enable us to identify and build on points of alignment between the research and policy organisations’ processes and interests. This will form the basis for the development of responsive and targeted guidelines and policy briefs, which will be presented and discussed at remote roundtable events.

At the national level, the ODI team will use the findings of WP1 on the political dimensions of multilingualism in each conflict context to inform the content and makeup of in-person/hybrid roundtables, convened at the national and sub-national levels. Roundtables will make use of simultaneous translation, where appropriate, to ensure diversity of participants. Policy engagement will culminate in a final workshop for policymakers, academics, NGOs and others interested in learning how policies regarding multilingualism can reduce the likelihood of conflict and help bring an end to ongoing conflict. We will distribute policy briefs at this workshop, and across organisations active in peacebuilding and peace negotiations across Africa, translated into a range of context-appropriate languages. 

Co-investigators at ODI will ensure early engagement with key stakeholders whose views and priorities will be incorporated into WP1 and WP2. ODI researchers will be engaged as part of the research team, contributing to the data collection and analysis to ensure that it extends to policy-relevant insights. WP1 and WP2 researchers will be included in the strategic engagements with policy actors and creative media practitioners, to discuss overlapping interests and ensure the appropriate translation of the research into tailored, non-academic outputs.

Overall, through targeted, high-level political engagement and a programme of broader media outreach, WP3 will lead to substantial political, cultural and social impacts both during and following the project.