Funder/Partner:
Project Overview
Mauritius has 322 km of coastline enclosing a 243 km² lagoon, yet decades of tourism-led development, invasive species, agricultural run-off and coastal erosion have left only 145 ha of mangrove and dry coastal forest and stripped over 95% of coral in some areas. Although the country established an ICZM Division in 2000, an ICZM Committee in 2002 and a strategic ICZM framework in 2010, collective ownership of integrated coastal zone management remains weak: the science is complex, the stakeholders are many, and the issues rarely reach the public in an accessible form.
This project designed and rolled out a national ICZM awareness campaign built around a modular Communication Toolkit intended to outlast the contract period. Developed primarily in Creole and French with English subtitles and distributed digitally to keep costs low, the toolkit combined short videos, infographics, explanatory materials and interactive quizzes, and foregrounded local researchers, coastal knowledge-holders, NGOs and the RECOS team itself.
Key Objectives
- Establish a common baseline of ICZM understanding for the general public, combining 2minutes videos and infographics covering definitions, core concepts and myths versus facts, and serving as a shared entry point.
- Help private-sector decision-makers and members of the Mauritian ICZM Committee deepen their grasp of coastal dynamics and gauge the impact of their administrative decisions, through an e-learning module (3–4 scripted videos, explanatory content, knowledge checks, certificate of completion) covering the Nairobi Convention, national ICZM-related policy, and science–practice–policy linkages.
- Equip village and district council representatives, civil associations and NGOs with the tools to run their own awareness sessions, via good-practice video series, practical guides for community meetings and local talks, reporting and follow-up templates, and a resource-person directory.
Approach
We developed the communication strategy in line with the Dynamia–IOIF ICZM methodology team and the IOC. We scoped and validated the scientific and policy content first, then built learning pathways, scripts, storyboards and visual supports for each of the three toolkit layers. The team of 2 Minutes pour Demain (2minutes.mu) filmed and produced the two-minute videos, snack-bites and longer scripted pieces under ethical filming guidelines, working with local researchers, coastal knowledge-holders and NGOs. We built the onboarding module, then presented it to the ICZM Committee for approval, and rolled out the empowerment dimension through district councils via four decentralised trainings across the north, south, east and west.
We ran press engagement alongside delivery rather than after it, connecting journalists directly with the project team and supplying press dossiers, and we launched the full toolkit at a public, media-covered event. To strengthen national coverage, we delivered a training on ICZM to news professionals on 23 July 2026, hosted by and held at the Media Trust in Port Louis, grounding them in ICZM concepts, the national policy framework and local coastal issues. We closed with an impact evaluation plan and final report, using the toolkit's quizzes as a lightweight measure of knowledge uptake over time.
Project Type:
Request for Proposals | Methodology Development | Policy Advisory
