Building the capacity of city governments across India to build better communications
Crafting bootcamps and toolkits to improve how cities talk to their citizens in India
Location
PAN India
Service
Capacity Building
Year
2022-2024
Collaborators
Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs
Role
Lead - Strategy, Design and Execution
Credit
I share the credits for this work with my super awesome team at ITDP India. I do not take ownership of this work.
Indian cities need to up their communications game to improve acceptance and develop trust amongst their growing populations. Through national initiatives with the Smart Cities Mission, we developed simple, easy-to get guidance materials and workshops to improve how cities talk to their citizens across the nation.
Communications Strategy Workshop for Sustainable Mobility | Credits: ITDP India
Multiple Toolkits & Templates prepared for cities to improve their comms | Credits: ITDP India
"Everything is comms. Whatever we do, if we don't communicate it properly, its like it doesn't exist"
Comms is not rocket science. Smart capacity building is one of the most powerful ways of building self-sustaining communication systems within city governments in India.
As cities across India took bold steps to reclaim streets for people through the India Cycles4Change and Streets4People Challenges, it became clear that transformation on the ground needed to be matched with transformation in how cities communicate.
Communications wasn’t just a supporting piece - it was one of the three core pillars of the national challenges. Getting it right meant helping cities build public trust, rally citizen support, and make the movement visible and lasting.
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To support this, a first-of-its-kind capacity-building programme for city governments was developed - equipping them with the tools, skills, and confidence to lead impactful communications. This included full-fledged communications curriculums, hands-on data storytelling guides, step-by-step campaign planning templates, and customisable toolkits for social media, hoardings, and public outreach.
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From analysing citizen survey data to designing behaviour change campaigns, cities were guided every step of the way - not just to inform, but to inspire. This effort marked a turning point: for the first time, local governments across India were not only building better streets, but learning to tell their stories with clarity, creativity, and purpose.
