What are Information, Education and Communication Materials?

IEC is an approach which attempts to change or reinforce a set of behaviours in a “target audience” regarding a specific problem in a predefined period of time. It is multidisciplinary and client-centred in its approach, drawing from the fields of diffusion theory, social marketing, behaviour analysis, anthropology, and instructive design. IEC strategies involve planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

IEC materials have the objectives of raising awareness, attempting to change, reinforce, or promote a clear message to a targeted audience through different channels. These channels include printed media, such as posters, flyers, leaflets, brochures, booklets, broadcast media including radio messages or animation, and text messages All evidence highlights that IECs on their own are not a solution.

About the shelter Compendium

The Shelter Compendium is a global open-source database under the Promoting Safe Building (PSB) Working Group of the Global Shelter Cluster to compile and assess existing IEC materials related to Shelter and Settlements responses. The key material in the Shelter Compendium database has been reviewed by technical experts, and these comments are displayed alongside each file. The Shelter Compendium documents existing materials rather than creating new ones.

The Shelter Compendium prioritizes materials that are relevant to the emergency phase of shelter and settlements responses. It prioritises messages that communicate with the affected populations as a primary audience, and local builders as a secondary audience. The Shelter Compendium also contains tools that are more technical and are created for shelter practitioners, but their content can be easily retrieved, modified, and made into contextualized material for the affected populations.

The Shelter Compendium Overview publication

This Publication is an overview to the Shelter Compendium. It provides an understanding of the methodology and an analysis of the database, and presents a selected number of reviewed IEC materials with different themes as a sample. Different articles on the development, testing and rolling out of the IEC materials are reflected in this publication to highlight that IEC materials should not be approached as a product, but rather as a process.

The Shelter Compendium is created by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with financial support of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance of USAID. This web platform has been developed by Miniature with the support of the Sustainable Shelter Group of the University of Cambridge and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.

For comments, feedback or questions, please contact iec@sheltercluster.org.

DISCLAIMER

Copyright for the IEC materials and illustrations remains with the agencies or entities whose names appear on them. The Global Shelter Cluster and its members may use the materials, if appropriately credited.