translate English to French: Several African communication scholars, researchers and practitioners have written about and attempted to contextualize the application of the concept in the African environment; a number of study materials have also been produced and virtually (An image was removed.) all communication teaching and training institutions in the continent offer courses and programmes on the concept, often under such appellations as 'communication and development'; 'participatory development communication'; 'communication for development'; 'communication for social change'; and the older but more practice-oriented term 'development-support communication'.2 The concept and its different appellations have been very comprehensively defined in the communication literature and we will not attempt to do any in-depth definitional or operational analysis here.3 A working definition that contains many of the tenets and assumptions of the concept, and which we will adopt in this chapter, refers to development communication as the planned and systematic application of communication resources, channels, approaches and strategies to support the goals of socio-economic, political and cultural development.
La « communication participative pour le développement » repose pour sa part sur un processus de planification et d'utilisation des ressources, canaux, approches et stratégies de communication en vertu de programmes conçus pour susciter le progrès, le changement ou le développement, de même que sur la participation des personnes ou de la communauté aux efforts visant le changement. Comme Ascroft et Masilela4 l'ont judicieusement noté, dans le contexte africain comme partout ailleurs, la participation se manifeste par l'engagement actif des individus au sein des programmes et des processus de développement, auxquels ils contribuent en formulant des idées, en prenant des initiatives et en exprimant leurs besoins et leurs problèmes, tout en affirmant leur autonomie.