Sharjah:
In keeping with its theme of encouraging greater community participation in shaping government communication to fuel the development process, the eighth edition of the International Government Communication Forum (IGCF 2019) will be hosting an array of sessions that will bring members of the UAE community centre stage.
Entitled ‘5x5-Five Challenges and Five Solutions in One Day’, this three-hour session will be held twice, once on each day of the two-day forum on March 20-21, to accommodate points of view from five different segments of the UAE community — adolescents, youth, parents, people of determination, and communication experts. These participants will shed light on five behavioural challenges that prevent individuals from these segments from playing active roles in the country’s development.
The session will also see them come up with five practical and implementable solutions to overcome these challenges.
Based on the IGCF 2019 theme of ‘Behavioural Change Towards Human Development’, the ultimate aim of this adjunct session is to enrich the overall outcome of the forum by bringing to the attending audiences a number of creative ideas, skills, perspectives and experiences.
The brainstorming session will explore the behavioural challenges that prevent individuals of various age and professional backgrounds from actively contributing towards the development of the country. Examples of such behavioural challenges include inaction and negativity, addiction to electronic games, resorting to time-consuming social activities, selfishness, lack of positive impact by media channels to name just a few.
This will be followed by identifying five challenges to be considered as priority discussion points during the day.
Five solutions for each behavioural challenge will also be tackled. This will be followed by a vote to select the best and most effective solution. The group will also discuss the implementation aspects for each selected solution. A brief report summarising the challenges and solutions will be shared with the media and audience.
The first brainstorming session will be held on March 20 at 12:00 noon, while the second will be held the following day. Each session will provide an opportunity to the participants and audience to debate and interact to identify the greatest possible number of behavioural challenges that prevent individuals from making effective and meaningful contributions to the development process of the country.
