Development Media International
Media Health Campaigns
Development Media International creates evidence-based radio, television, and video campaigns to change behaviours and improve health outcomes in low-income countries.
What problem is Development Media International working on?
Mass media reaches millions of people and can stimulate significant shifts in behaviour when the right messages reach the right people. DMI has conducted studies that found that media campaigns can encourage people to protect themselves from disease, seek treatment at the right time, and help them to plan and raise healthy families.
What does Development Media International do?
Development Media International (DMI) uses storytelling to motivate change and uses scientific methods to test the impact of its interventions. Specifically, DMI:
- Uses evidence-based campaigns to maximise the impact of its work, and uses mathematical modelling to determine which messages can save the most lives. For example, findings from DMI’s first randomised controlled trial found that DMI’s radio campaign increased malaria diagnoses by 56% and modelling suggests it saved an estimated 3,000 lives in Burkina Faso. A cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that this is among the most cost-effective interventions available for saving children’s lives.
- Evaluates its impact using randomised controlled trials or quasi-experimental designs.
- Uses storytelling techniques and dramatisations to engage its audience.
DMI's current focus areas are:
- Reducing preventable deaths.
- Improving early childhood development.
- Helping parents with family planning.
- Promoting healthy behaviours.
What information does Giving What We Can have about the cost-effectiveness of Development Media International?
We don't currently have further information about the cost-effectiveness of Development Media International beyond it doing work in a high-impact cause area and taking a reasonably promising approach.
Please note that GWWC does not evaluate individual charities. Our recommendations are based on the research of third-party, impact-focused charity evaluators our research team has found to be particularly well-suited to help donors do the most good per dollar, according to their recent evaluator investigations. Our other supported programs are those that align with our charitable purpose — they are working on a high-impact problem and take a reasonably promising approach (based on publicly-available information).
At Giving What We Can, we focus on the effectiveness of an organisation's work -- what the organisation is actually doing and whether their programs are making a big difference. Some others in the charity recommendation space focus instead on the ratio of admin costs to program spending, part of what we’ve termed the “overhead myth.” See why overhead isn’t the full story and learn more about our approach to charity evaluation.