The Practice and Challenges of Campaign Communication in Ethiopia Prime Minister Office (PMO): Focus on Dinner for Shegere Project
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Date
2021-08
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አዲስ አበባ ዩኒቨርስቲ
Abstract
Since 2018, Ethiopia is in a new form of government transition. The appointment of PM Abiy Ahmed shows so many ups and downs in the country. There were a number of campaign communications had organized to changes the attitude of the citizens. Among them Dinner for sheger is mentioned. Dinner for Shiger is a 5 million dinners with selected individuals to beautifying the capital city of Addis Ababa. But it ignore lower level of citizens in the fundraising campaign, hence it lacks the belongingness of the project. On the other hand the challenges could be lack of understanding by the society in achieving the reform in an acceptable ways, there is a real gap between government and lower level citizens, especially at the time of social media usage, (twitter, high professionals discussions, roundtable discussions), even if there is a high governmental commitment, some gaps are exist, and lack of trust of PMO PR personnel. The project is in the hands of Prime Minister Abiy Ahemed (Dr.) hence, it lacks institutionalization. On the other hand the emerging of pressure groups or activists is creating visible challenges in the nation’s transformation era.
The research assesse, how the PMO Press Secretariat organized Dinner for sheger fundraising campaign. Besides this it tries to answer fundamental research questions. Among those questions, what are the major PRs tools used for communicating with the target audiences? In which Medias the campaign has been addressed, how they select the target audience, what was the aim of Dinner for sheger and how they see the end result of the fundraising campaign and related questions are raised and answered. The research employed a qualitative research approach, wherein, in-depth interview, focus group discussions (FGDs), document analysis and observations were used as data gathering instruments. The study used qualitative case study research method. With regard to the sampling procedure, three staffs from PMO agenda setting department are contacted, fourteen PR practitioners and journalist are also selected for interview using purposive sampling techniques. The study recommended that the beautifying of sheger is important for the nation. Beautifying the city is not the responsibility of investors or other organizations only. All citizens must part of the project. To create belongingness of the project the PMO must accompany all citizens. Priority is the backbone of every communication campaign.
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Ethiopia Prime Minister Office (PMO): Focus on Dinner for Shegere Project