"This guide is for trainers of media workers and government officials in the strategic communication of major development objectives. It is intended to improve the skills of media practitioners and policy makers by helping them create and disseminate policy information in ways which are accessible to different constituents. It also highlights the importance of giving citizens space to react, comment and interact with policy decisions in real and creative ways. As such the guide is at the centre of a regional project set up by the conflict transformation NGO Search for Common Ground (www.sfcg.org), and supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Finnish Government. The project, 'Radio: A Platform for Peacebuilding (RAPP)', which includes the website www.radiopeaceafrica.org, covers seven West and Central African countries. The project's overall objective is, to improve the population's access to information about policies and decisions that affect their lives [...] The RAPP project has undertaken media sector mappings in the seven countries. Media sector mapping (MSM) is a tool that identifies how information is generated and communicated to citizens and how they in turn use this information to participate in the implementation of government policies. The findings of the MSMs suggest that few governments are successfully communicating their major development policies to the citizens. They therefore run the risk that the policies will never take hold, and the essential reforms will not occur, so increasing the risk of conflict. Once citizens are able to become involved in policy decisions and programmes which affect their lives, rather than being viewed and treated as the simple (and grateful) recipients of largesse from above, these policies take on a more meaningful existence - one in which strategies are created, and decisions are made by the people who are most affected by them. In this model strategic communication becomes a key component of the development process, meaning that communication is a dialogue, from the government to the people and from the people to government (vertical communication), as well as allowing for communication across society from one community to another (horizontal communication)." (Introduction)