Best-fit considerations
Campaigns have universal relevance and are suited to many different topics, from mitigating plant health risks to promoting sustainable fishing and better natural resource management. All sectors and organisations have potential contributions to make. Campaigns may be small-scale and local or large-scale and national, depending on funds and committed partners. Information and communication technologies may be best suited to reaching younger farmers, though all ages listen to radio, and mobile phone ownership and coverage is increasing steadily.
Governance
Government and public organisations will usually oversee large-scale campaigns, though these are ideally led by an advisory group that balances the interests of different partners. A small secretariat is often funded by SCALE projects to coordinate activities (e.g. providing training). Small-scale campaigns will have a simpler management structure, and could be led by a single organisation (e.g. extension provider or NGO).
Evidence of impacts, sustainability, and scalability
Evidence of impact is often dependent on numbers of people reached or anecdotal accounts, rather than widespread, well documented changes in behaviour. Campaigns have undoubtedly raised public awareness, particularly of new plant diseases in East Africa, but their ability to achieve enduring, large-scale impact is limited by the availability of durable control measures (e.g. resistant crop varieties). Where such measures exist and concerted, sustained action is taken, campaigns have had remarkable success, as in the global eradication of rinderpest. Other indirect ways of measuring impact include assessing changes in social capital, the strength of relationships, and trust between partners. Two years after the end of the SCALE dairy project in Kenya, partners continued to collaborate in promoting fodder trees. Campaigns are by definition one-off, usually short-term events and are sustainable in the sense that they are routinely used to address topics. Campaigns are inherently scalable.
