Media Action Insight Blog Feed

Supporting media and humanitarian practitioners to overcome communication challenges

2022-08-18T09:55:07+00:00

Displaced young Syrians wait to receive humanitarian aid. Credit: Getty Images

The fourth commitment which humanitarian agencies sign up to under the Core Humanitarian Standard states that ‘Communities and people affected by crisis know their rights and entitlements, have access to information and participate in decisions which affect them’. But for humanitarian practitioners, particularly those working in settings where humanitarian access is limited, sharing relevant, accurate information and ensuring communities’ needs and priorities are heard and acted upon can be easier said than done.

Research currently being conducted by ��tv Media Action to inform a new capacity strengthening project funded by USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs, is finding that humanitarian practitioners in the project’s three focus countries (Nigeria, Somalia and Ukraine) face various challenges communicating with communities affected by crises.

In Somalia, humanitarian practitioners we spoke to are facing challenges getting hold of accurate and relevant information themselves to be able to answer people’s questions, as communication and coordination between local and humanitarian organisations is a challenge. In Northern Nigeria, having capacity to communicate in the right languages to reach internally displaced people who often don’t speak the same language as the host community (see Translators without Borders study). And in Ukraine, a recent assessment carried out by REACH in May 2022 identified getting information to people with limited access to digital platforms, as a critical challenge. Across the board, humanitarian practitioners feel their organisations have mechanisms in place to collect feedback from communities, but often these mechanisms are not known about, or not trusted by community members, and are therefore underused, especially by those who are illiterate, have limited access to mobile phones, or live in more remote areas.

Media practitioners we spoke to as part of the research said they face challenges getting access to information which is useful and relevant to their audiences, especially finding contacts within humanitarian organisations who are ready to answer audiences’ questions on air. Some also expressed frustration that they feel they are treated with suspicion by humanitarian organisations, or are contacted to distribute organisations’ press releases rather than create engaging and useful content for audiences. The research so far has found limited interaction between media and humanitarian practitioners in the project’s focus areas.

And these communication challenges are reflected at community level. A recent study (2021) carried out by Ground Truth Solutions with recipients of cash and voucher programmes in Somalia found that 45% of respondents feel informed about available aid; and only 25% of respondents feel aid providers take their opinions into account when designing programmes. Community leaders within IDP camps we spoke to in Somalia felt that although they frequently communicate their communities’ needs to organisations during assessments, this information is rarely listened to and acted upon. A similar Ground Truth Solutions study in Nigeria (2021), found that 48% of respondents do not know what aid is available to them, and 49% feel their opinions are taken into account by humanitarian staff. The REACH assessment in Ukraine found that 66% of participants say they need information about how to register for humanitarian assistance.

People gather to receive humanitarian aid in Sudan. Credit: Getty Images

��tv Media Action has extensive experience supporting humanitarian and media practitioners to communicate more effectively with communities affected by crisis. Most recently, in Bangladesh, where ��tv Media Action and Translators without Borders have been training practitioners responding to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis under the ‘Common Service for community engagement and accountability’ project since 2017, we have found that trainees place a particular value on training and tools to help them communicate in Rohingya language. In a recent evaluation of the project, practitioners emphasised how training has helped them prioritize and develop communication and listening skills, which managers say has led to better community satisfaction.

“We were not sufficiently sensitive to the Rohingya community culture and there were also language barriers. Their perception of different issues were not clear to us. After getting training, staff have changed their methods, how they behave and talk to the communities.’’ Humanitarian practitioner, Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh

Where possible, ��tv Media Action’s approach is to train humanitarian and media practitioners together, building the understanding that both have a critical role to play in ensuring communities have access to information they need. As previous evaluations have also shown, a recent study with participants of ��tv Media Action’s ‘Lifeline training’ in Afghanistan found that the training helped bridge the gap and build understanding and connections between journalists and field practitioners, which they have been able to use in their work.

“The training has changed our relationship with media and journalists. By communicating with social workers and journalists, most of our communication problems are solved. Additionally, the training has increased our capacity in communicating with people in the communities.” Community health worker, Helmand province, Afghanistan

Over the next year, ��tv Media Action will be working with humanitarian and media practitioners in Nigeria, Somalia and Ukraine to support them to overcome challenges they are facing to communicate effectively with communities affected by crisis in these countries. Learning from the project will be shared and disseminated at country and global level.

Nicola Bailey is senior research manager for Asia/Europe at ��tv Media Action, based in London. Co-authors are: ��tv Media Action's Hodan Ibrahim, senior research officer, Somalia; Mohamed Yonis, project director, Somalia; Anu Njamah, head of research, Nigeria and Cian Ginley Ibbotson, project manager, Ukraine.

Read more about our humanitarian response on our website.

Supporting communities affected by crisis: what we have learned

2021-12-08T14:27:18+00:00

Communication is a critical part of humanitarian response. People need access to relevant, reliable information, so they can make informed decisions about how to keep their families safe. When communities are affected by crisis, we work with local media, government and humanitarian agencies to make sure the voices of communities are heard, and they have access to the information they need.

��tv Media Action has a long history of training media and humanitarian practitioners on the importance of working together to communicate effectively with communities affected by crisis. We have always conducted audience research to inform our media programming. More recently, we have started actively sharing our research to help the humanitarian sector understand and respond to the people they are assisting.. Through our ongoing response to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh, we now have evidence of how our work can impact how humanitarians communicate with communities in a response.

Supporting media, NGO practitioners and others to communicate effectively

Across countries, we work with local media to make practical and relevant content and provide platforms for discussion. For example, our Ogaal (Be Informed) radio programme helped support communities affected by drought in Somalia; Milijuli Nepali (Together Nepal) radio programme provided practical information to people affected by the 2015 earthquake, and more recently information around COVID-19.

We often train humanitarian workers and local media in ‘Lifeline’ programming, sharing our approach on how and what to communicate to communities in crisis, and building relationships so they are ready to respond together when needed. For example, a recent partnership with International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) included training national staff and NGO workers alongside local media in eight countries.

Providing audience insight to humanitarian sector to improve response

Our knowledge about how to communicate and make engaging content is based on a strong understanding of our audiences. Effective communication cannot happen without listening to the needs and priorities of our audiences, and knowing how best to engage them. Over time we have realised that data about the audience needs, values and attitudes is not just valuable for us and our media partners, but for our humanitarian colleagues too.

The most recent example of this work is in the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh. Since the beginning of the crisis in 2017, we have been collating community feedback from humanitarian partners and carrying out regular research in the camps to understand people’s needs and priorities. We’ve been sharing our insights with humanitarian partners through the regular What Matters? bulletin, and other short research reports, to ensure communities’ perspectives are being heard.

Getty images for ��tv Media Action only

Since the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 has been a frequent focus of the bulletins, reflecting community concerns: the most recent issue includes community questions and concerns about vaccines, and community perspectives on how they can get in touch to raise concerns with humanitarian agencies.

Beyond the Rohingya camps, our research teams have played a role in helping humanitarian partners understand community perceptions and rumours around coronavirus, and how best to pitch their communication. From April 2020, our research team in Bangladesh published Corona Kotha (Corona Talk), which brought insights from hard-to-reach communities across the country to humanitarian workers.

We are taking a similar approach in Afghanistan. Between September 2020 and February 2021, our researchers talked to people in six provinces every month to understand the impact the pandemic was having, and shared their insights through the Covid and Community Voice (CCV) publication. Local journalists said the newsletters were useful sources of information on what prevention measures community members were taking, attitudes and rumours around COVID-19 vaccines, and people’s concerns about a second wave of COVID-19. Humanitarian workers described the bulletin as the “eyes and ears of the risk communication group”, and appreciated that it was based on work by local researchers, so they could be sure there were no language or cultural barriers in the interpretation of data.

This work has continued more recently, funded by World Health Organization (WHO). In September, shortly after the Taliban came into power, the team managed to interview 287 people across 10 provinces of Afghanistan by telephone. This survey asked about COVID-19 as well as people’s priority concerns, health issues arising in their communities, and their sources of information, as health and other services were disrupted.

Insights are being used to inform a weekly health radio magazine programme supporting people across Afghanistan, which is being aired on the World Service and local partner radio stations. Insights are also being shared with humanitarian partners at relevant meetings and through the Community Voice bulletin, who value these audience insights where access is currently very difficult.

So what impact does this work have?

In our January 2021 evaluation of the Rohingya response work, we found humanitarian workers value how What Matters? helps agencies understand communities’ perceptions, preferences, priorities and what rumours were spreading as the pandemic evolved. The publication is seen as trusted and reliable, and is appreciated for providing “an objective view, rooted in what the community was saying”. Practitioners gave examples of how the insights helped them plan effective communication strategies, and even advocate for change in their programmes:

“We know from recent What Matters? that communities are open to vaccination but still have concerns about the vaccination being unsafe. It’s important knowledge…we don’t have to start at the beginning to convince people that the vaccine is a good thing, because we know they are already open to it. But we do need to answer their questions about safety.” - Management level practitioner

“Feedback coming through What Matters? was that there was a lot of fear and suspicion linked to the mandatory nature of the quarantine. That information really helped us advocate with the government to change the policy, so people could await their test results at home rather than in an isolation centre.” - Management level practitioner

Previous project evaluations have consistently found that research insights helped practitioners better understand the Rohingya community, and provided evidence of community priorities and concerns, which enabled practitioners to take action themselves – or advocate for others to do so.

What else have we learned?

Across all these initiatives, our researchers and project staff have drawn out a number of key learnings in how to share our research insights with humanitarian partners:

Be transparent about where your data is coming from: Transparency around research methods, number and location of participant matters to humanitarian partners. They often use our bulletins alongside other sources of information to influence decisions or advocate for changes in programmes or provisions. They need accurate information about where data is coming from, as communities in different locations may face different issues.
Put yourself in a humanitarian’s shoes: Through attending humanitarian cluster meetings, researchers have learned what information can be useful to help humanitarian partners better serve the communities they are trying to support.
Don’t rely on email to get your insights out there: Busy humanitarians don’t have time to read all their emails, so presenting relevant community needs and perspectives at cluster meetings is crucial to reach more practitioners who can act on those insights.
Make sure vulnerable groups are represented: Ensure marginalised and vulnerable audiences are included in research to ensure their needs and perspectives are highlighted.

��tv Media Action continues to publish insights on priority needs and concerns of audiences across Afghanistan and in Cox’s Bazar on a regular basis, for use by humanitarian and media practitioners in their programming.

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Nicola Bailey is research manager for South Asia at ��tv Media Action, based in London. Read more about our humanitarian response on our website.

The case for communication: COVID-19 in Cox’s Bazar

2021-06-17T08:11:21+00:00

Back in March 2020, everyone was worried about what would happen when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. It is one of the most densely populated parts of the world, with challenging sanitation and limited health care resources; over 800,000 people live in tarpaulin shelters on unstable slopes and up to 12 inhabitants share each shelter.

Experts warned that up to 98% of the population would be infected during the first year and, without effective intervention, the hospital’s 340 beds would be full to bursting within 2-5 months.

By late March, Bangladesh authorities had restricted movement in and out of the camps, and on 8 April the Bangladesh government imposed a lockdown banning all travel into and out of the district. But in May, COVID-19 was confirmed in two Rohingya refugees and 10 Bangladeshis living nearby.

Looking back, we now know the situation was not as catastrophic as anticipated; cases in the camps remained lower than initially predicted, even as they rose across the country.

Research demonstrates some success

Why this happened is difficult to explain. But our research has demonstrated one success: the level of awareness among the Rohingya population about COVID-19, driven by sustained work by several agencies including the Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability, led by ��tv Media Action, which has been supporting Rohingya people and host communities to cope with COVID-19.

We carried out a face-to-face survey in January 2021, among nearly 2,700 Rohingya refugees and more than 1,000 people in adjacent host communities, to provide robust data on access to information and accountability in the camps. We measured the reach of our Common Service communication materials in these communities, and explored the association between exposure to this content and specific outcomes.

We found that almost two-thirds of the Rohingya population felt quite well-informed or well-informed about COVID-19, and Rohingya women felt more informed than men - 65% compared to 55%. More than 70% of Rohingya people could accurately identify COVID-19 symptoms, and said they felt well- informed about how to protect themselves. And a majority of people surveyed knew how to keep themselves safe: washing their hands with soap, which they said they didn’t do before but had been doing since the pandemic; wearing masks in public; keeping distance from people and avoiding crowds.

A vital role in informing about COVID-19

Our communication initiatives played a vital role in informing people about COVID-19, particularly for women who, because of traditional community values, are often secluded from public life with limited access to media. We found that 40% of Rohingya people had high levels of knowledge about COVID-19 – 47% among women, and 33% among men. This may be because trusted NGO staff and volunteers had been particularly effective at reaching Rohingya women through listening groups, door-to-door visits and women-friendly spaces, many of them using communication tools and techniques we have provided.

This is particularly important because we found that, unlike their host communities, the Rohingya people in the camps have limited access to mass media, and receive most of their information through these face-to-face communications interventions: meetings with NGO staff and volunteers, loud-speaker announcements, and communication materials made available at listening groups, food distribution points, health facilities and information hubs. We found that people who attend these places, and are exposed to this content, have greater knowledge about COVID-19.

This is a testament to all agencies who have been working tirelessly to communicate with the community throughout the pandemic. The Common Service project played a vital role in creating and sharing communication materials, now available on our Shongjog website for anyone to use.

At the onset of the pandemic, we produced more than 60 communication tools (Shongjog | Resources) designed to improve communication, awareness and knowledge of COVID-19 for the Rohingya and host communities, and for health workers themselves.

Following requests from the World Health Organization and other health-focused agencies, we produced videos to train frontline health workers on infection prevention and control. Several agencies also used our audio recordings for community health volunteers. Later in 2020, we produced dozens more tools in response to agency and sector requests: community-facing materials on COVID-19 awareness, prevention, and mitigation, and tip sheets for new protocols for food distribution, the re-opening of registration, the principles of case management, child protection and immunisation.

Our survey data found that 75% of the Rohingya community said they had seen or heard at least five pieces of Common Service content. And, vitally, those who had accessed our content were 1.6 times as likely to have greater knowledge about COVID-19 than those who hadn’t.

"People did not want to believe Covid is a real thing, so they [Common Service] made some videos. Imams were shown using masks in the video and it used habits and quotations from the Quran – this makes people take it seriously. This worked well. That really resonated with the community,” said a field-level practitioner in the Rohingya response.

Our researchers found community members liked the content because it was made for them, in their language; it was easy to understand; they could relate to the characters and the camp setting; and it was in line with their values.

The next deadly wave

In Cox’s Bazar, the pandemic is far from over. Since April this year, Bangladesh has again been under tough COVID-19 restrictions, following another wave of infections and the spread of the ‘Delta’ variant in neighbouring countries. Cases are also rising in the camps at a higher rate than before.

Once again, we know we need to redouble our efforts to communicate with this isolated community, living in a confined space and left out of the information shared by mass media in the region. If our research has shown us one thing, it is that with a targeted communication strategy, trustworthy, relevant, and engaging content can help save lives - even from a deadly virus.

Arif Al Mamun is ��tv Media Action's Head of Research in Bangladesh. Read more insights and impact from our Common Service project on our website.

Why communication needs to be at the heart of humanitarian response

2018-08-31T08:00:00+00:00

“One organisation delivers blankets; then another also delivers blankets. One organisation distributes rice, and then another also distributes rice. Talking of blankets, for example, I’ve got six or seven new blankets in my home.”

These words, spoken by a Nepali man sitting on a pile of rubble after the 2015 earthquake, have stayed with me as a reminder of what needs to change in the global approach to humanitarian response.

“Instead of giving us such things, they could give us what we need, like water, for example”, echoed a woman. “We asked particularly for water pipes and they didn’t give us those. We have to go far away with a basket to collect water.”

At the root of this absurd situation were a number of key problems.

Among them, the perpetual issues of coordination and professionalism. When lots of agencies are planning to help people, it’s clear that there needs to be a basic discussion on which agency does what, and where. In fairness, things have come a long way in the aid sector since high-profile humanitarian response fiascos of the 90s, such as the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide, led to an increasing professionalisation of aid and steadily better coordination. In all big humanitarian responses, there are now frequent coordination meetings where these important conversations happen, and do make a difference. But there are still gaps, as we saw in Nepal.

The other problem was about not listening to the people you are trying to help.

It has taken the aid world a long time to realise that there might be value in putting the needs and views of affected people at the heart of decision-making.

Listening to people can be time-consuming, especially if they don’t speak your language, and it gets all the more inconvenient when what you hear does not match with your preconceived ideas about what you should be doing. It’s far easier to make assumptions about what to give people, dole out whatever you previously promised your funder you would deliver, and measure success in terms of total numbers of blankets and bags of rice distributed.

But how can we hope to really help the people we are serving if we don’t find out what they need?

This issue is at the heart of the still-emerging field of what is increasingly referred to as Communication, Community Engagement and Accountability (CCEA). The past few years have seen big strides towards recognising that crisis-affected people need timely humanitarian information, are able to participate in decisions that affect them, and have access to responsive complaints mechanisms. Key international policies and guidelines (including the Transformative Agenda, the Grand Bargain and the Core Humanitarian Standard) include strong reference to this.

What is needed now is a more systematic application of these standards, more people with the skillsets to implement them and - underpinning it all – more dedicated funding. But the humanitarian community has learned a lot and there are encouraging examples of progress.

Putting theory into practice

The United Nations describes the Rohingya emergency as currently the “fastest-growing refugee crisis”. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people have fled their homes in Myanmar and now find themselves in vast, sprawling camps over the border in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Early assessments found, as usual, that communication, feedback and accountability mechanisms in the camps had numerous shortcomings. Since those assessments, ��tv Media Action has been among the agencies who have received funding for community engagement and accountability activities and we now see a number of areas where things are clearly working far better than usual.

Firstly, CCEA is very firmly on the radar of most responding agencies and funders as an integral part of the response. It is no longer seen as an optional add-on and there is a lot of effort taking place, even if the results are not always perfect. Secondly, coordination structures for CCEA were already present when the crisis escalated so there wasn’t the usual scramble of who should be at the table.

Thirdly, there are many aid workers with the skills and knowledge to undertake this kind of work.

There is no doubt that greater awareness and momentum at a global level is leading to change on the ground. Local-level efforts – in particular preparedness – can also make a contribution.

In 2013 ��tv Media Action began work in Bangladesh (funded by the UK Department for International Development) to better prepare media and aid agencies to communicate with affected people in emergencies. Among the outcomes was the creation of a working group for Communication with Communities, chaired by the Bangladesh Government’s Department of Disaster Management. With a fresh grant through the global Communicating with Disaster-Affected Communities (CDAC) Network, this later evolved into Shongjog – a national platform focused on Communication with Communities.

All this preparatory work helped build relationships between agencies and key individuals, raised the profile of CCEA, established coordination mechanisms (including in Cox’s Bazar) and also upskilled local staff on CCEA, with many hundreds of professionals trained in humanitarian communication and accountability. The majority of them are now working on this response.

If humanitarian assistance is to be effective, all aspects of the response require preparedness: From where will shelter materials be sourced? How will aid reach the affected people? Who will deliver it? Where will food and medical supplies (and not to mention all those blankets) be stocked while they await distribution? Preparedness for communication is no exception – training, planning, awareness-raising and relationship building are a must before an emergency hits.

And when disaster strikes, all those efforts must translate into action.

As part of our work responding to the Rohingya crisis, ��tv Media Action leads a consortium with Internews and Translators without Borders to provide a Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability. In practice, this means helping provide practical, local-language information to Rohingya people and host communities, giving them space to ask questions and raise concerns, as well as gathering and analysing feedback which we share with all aid actors via What Matters? - a regular bulletin offering an overview of Rohingya and host communities’ priority concerns as they evolve.

The hope is that agencies will continue to use findings from the latter to inform their work. A simple piece of feedback can have a significant effect on improving lives. For example, one of the bulletins described a concern that pregnant women are not getting enough nutritious food, such as vegetables. Now it’s over to the aid agencies to either provide that food if it’s indeed lacking, or give pregnant women information on what nutritious options are available and how to access them.

And that is perhaps the most critical point: action. People can become rapidly disillusioned if they try using the plethora of suggestion boxes and feedback hotlines, but nothing happens as a result. If we ask for people's trust, and if we want to help them to the best of our ability, we must not only listen to communities but also act on what we hear.

Jacqueline Dalton is a Senior Producer and Trainer for ��tv Media Action, specialising in humanitarian communication and community engagement.

Motivating ordinary Bangladeshis to respond to extreme weather

2017-07-27T09:59:59+00:00

This post was originally published on the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) blog.

Droughts. Cyclones. Floods.

There are few places where such extraordinary events are as commonplace as they are in Bangladesh, one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. Extreme weather poses a real threat to millions of Bangladeshis – with low-lying geography, high population density and under-developed infrastructure making things worse, especially for the poorest.

Fortunately, Bangladeshis are highly aware that nature can turn on people and are being spurred into action. In response to environmental change, people are growing alternative crops, migrating and changing jobs. In fact, Bangladesh is sometimes described as the adaptation capital of the world – thanks in part to the many government, civil society and international interventions aimed at helping people cope with a volatile climate.

So that’s all fine, then. No problem. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Maybe not.

Despite high levels of awareness and pockets of proactiveness, ��tv Media Action’s research found that many people still weren’t doing anything in response to environmental changes. Inaction stemmed from the fact that people didn’t know what to do, didn’t think they had enough money to do anything or felt they needed help from the government to do something. This state of affairs is unlikely to stay sustainable if the environmental situation becomes increasingly unforgiving.

Turning awareness into action

So, we set out to support those most affected by extreme weather to respond to these challenges themselves. Our reality TV show, Amrai Pari (Together we can do it), aimed to give people the information they needed to take action. It built on Bangladeshis’ strong community and family ties by sparking discussion to raise awareness of challenges, building networks to share information and showcasing good practice to inspire people to act.

We knew that most Bangladeshis watch TV regularly, so that was our primary channel for reaching them. We also worked with the well-developed volunteer networks of the Red Crescent Society and our NGO partners to engage people face-to-face. And – with Dhaka now the world’s second most active city on Facebook – we used social media to provide fun and lively content, specifically designed for young urbanites.

Aiming to go beyond the abstract, scientific and political angles that sometimes dominate media coverage of changes in climate, our focus was on helping people find affordable, achievable solutions to everyday challenges around extreme weather. But producing that content wasn’t easy.

How exactly do you help ordinary people cope with extreme weather?

Rising to this challenge meant moving away from the abstract concepts of ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ and talking more specifically about how changes in fluctuating temperatures and rainfall were affecting people’s ability to earn money, keep healthy or produce crops.

It meant fully understanding people’s attitudes, beliefs and needs to get to the heart of what was stopping them from taking action and what could help them overcome their inertia.

It meant making a show that would motivate people to change their behaviour through an engaging, entertaining and culturally relevant format.

It also meant working with Bangladesh’s many experts in this area, like Dr. Saleemul Huq, Director of the country’s International Centre for Climate Change and Development, as well as practitioners on the ground to ensure that our work drew on proven, replicable solutions and reinforced – rather than contradicted – the prevailing advice on how to adapt to changes in climate.

And, crucially, it meant constantly listening to what ordinary people had to say. We heard about the grassroots innovations they were already trying and gathered feedback on episodes of Amrai Pari, continually adapting and reworking the show as we learned more.

What did success look like?

Frankly, we were astonished by how well Amrai Pari did. We reached 7.5 million people in its last year alone, nearly half of whom said they – after watching the programme – had done something new like storing food, learning a new skill or diversifying the crops they grew. Regular viewers were especially likely to get inspired.

The extent of people’s self-belief – that they themselves could tackle environmental challenges – was one of the two most important factors in whether they’d actually respond, along with how at risk they felt.

But what exactly was it was about Amrai Pari that moved people to action? First, it increased people’s awareness of the specific risks they personally faced. Second, we helped make people feel less dependent on the government to solve their problems.

And it’s not over yet. Across the country, our partners are still projecting Amrai Pari onto screens in villages and sharing episodes on mobiles in slums, in order to lead practical, engaging discussions with the communities most affected by changing weather patterns. Currently at over 160,000 likes, the project’s Facebook presence continues to grow as more and more Bangladeshis get connected, particularly in smaller cities and semi-urban areas.

Nobody better understands the challenges caused by extreme weather than those experiencing it firsthand. Learning from the most affected and helping them respond is more important than it has ever been. Our experience shows that well-designed media and communication programmes, produced and shared in partnership with NGOs, local broadcasters and others can be a key part of the solution.

Shihan Zuberi is the Executive Editor of ��tv Media Action’s Bangladesh office.

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Three ways of communicating to stop disasters happening

2017-05-12T09:02:19+00:00

This past March, Peru was hit by devastating floods. Media reports led with death tolls and declarations of states of emergency. People volunteered their help on Facebook and offered refuge in their homes to those seeking shelter on Airbnb.

News coverage builds awareness of crises, drums up donations and connects the needy with people who can help. But are we leveraging the full potential of media and communication to stop disasters happening in the first place?

I’d argue that we could save more lives and livelihoods by going to greater lengths to communicate with people at risk before rather than after disaster strikes. The forewarned are forearmed after all; they can reinforce their homes, stock up on supplies and get to safer places.

In recognition of how preparations can save lives, early warning systems – across multiple types of hazards – will be a key feature of the upcoming Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. Organised by the Mexican government and my organisation, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), the conference will take place in Cancún, Mexico from May 22nd to 26th.

Recent years have seen some impressive improvements in the equipment used to detect pending disasters: weather satellites, flood water gauges and thermometers to measure sea surface temperatures. And technological advances in communication mean it’s easier to alert people than ever before.

But all these technical advancements count for little if they’re not backed up by money. But given the pressure on both governments and the public to focus on immediately pressing demands, convincing them to invest limited funds in preparing for disasters won’t be easy. Meeting this challenge will require convincing them of how costly disasters can be, as well as the risk of their happening – not easy cases to make.

These advancements also won’t amount to much if they don’t spur populations-at-large to break with their routines and get ready for serious events to strike. Bangladesh, India and the Philippines are just some of the countries taking this point increasingly seriously. Through working to improve public understanding of storm risks, they’ve helped ensure that weather forecasts lead to timely and efficient evacuations, with millions moved to safe areas, resulting in far fewer casualties.

Fortunately, these kinds of successes are replicable. Here are three ways of communicating to lay the groundwork for warning people about disasters before they happen:

1. Be engaging

Disaster risk reduction can come across as a daunting subject, with ordinary people switching off when they hear an acronym like DRR discussed in a dry, academic or alarmist way. But in an age of information overload, we need to entertain and engage people while helping them make decisions about how to prepare for disasters.

For example, 75% of urban residents in Costa Rica, Mexico and Colombia wouldn’t leave their pets behind during an evacuation – even if they only had five minutes – potentially endangering themselves and others. Clearly, people really love their dogs and cats.

Showcasing the effectiveness of engaging people with DRR through the issues they care about, World Animal Protection made a television spot (Spanish with English subtitles) off the back of this research which encouraged people to have emergency plans for the whole family – including their pets.

In the long run, making DRR content engaging will increase people’s confidence and motivation to: reduce risks, prepare for an emergency and respond when things start to get serious.

2. Respect that people have many pressing concerns

Poor people in low-income countries often juggle pressing priorities and have only limited options open to them. They‘re often forced to live in unsafe areas – like flood plains, unstable hillsides, and exposed coastlines – because there’s nowhere else they can afford to go. To take just one example, many of Metro Manila's four million-strong urban poor population live alongside waterways, where they’re especially vulnerable when typhoons strike.

Economic pressures often force people to make decisions to ensure their immediate survival at the possible expense of their livelihoods ten years down the line. A recent deadly mudslide in Mocao in Colombia was likely made more ruinous by deforestation fuelled by the search for arable land.

To successfully develop a culture of preparedness in everyday life, the DRR community needs to communicate with people about what’s immediately important to them and present realistic ways of reducing the risks they face.

3. Build understanding and trust

One of the strongest storms to ever make landfall, Typhoon Haiyan claimed well over 6,000 lives in the Philippines. Through conducting interviews in the storm’s aftermath, UNISDR uncovered a number of fatal misunderstandings about how Haiyan would unfold.

We discovered that many poor migrants and fishermen died in their shacks because they thought that evacuation meant eviction. Others mistakenly thought that their concrete homes were secure enough to withstand the storm.

Jerry Yoakasin, Vice Mayor of Tacloban, the worst-affected city in the country, has said that people didn’t understand what a ‘storm surge’ was. Defined as a sudden and abnormal rise in sea water levels, Haiyan's storm surge swept ships at sea inland, where they crushed homes.

Yoakasin believes lives were lost because storm surges weren't explained to people in ways they understood by those they trusted. His advice is just as relevant now.

The media can play an important role in breaking down complex issues for their audiences. This can drive public understanding of things like weather forecasting, helping shore up trust in early warning alerts. Closer relationships between the media, experts and government officials are essential to take full advantage of this potential.

Across all of these three areas – facilitating engagement, reflecting the difficult realities of people’s lives and building trust – media and communication have a vital role to play. When communication about disasters is attention-grabbing and relates to people’s experiences, people will actually sit up, take notice and prepare for hazards coming their way.

Robert Glasser is Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction and is head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). He tweets as @RobertGlasserUN.

The Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction conference will take place in Cancún, Mexico from May 22^nd to 26^th.

Blog: How can humanitarian broadcasting help support recovery from crises?

Lifeline programming: bringing together humanitarians, media and governments

2016-11-16T10:24:13+00:00

Preparing to run ‘lifeline’ programming before a crisis can build relationships between humanitarians, media and the government, facilitating collaboration that gets life-saving information to people when disaster strikes.

In a humanitarian crisis, people need timely and accurate information about how to meet their fundamental needs. They want to know where they can find food, shelter, water and medical help and how they can keep themselves and their families safe.

Getting the right information to crisis-affected people at the right time requires a diverse cast of organisations to communicate with each other as well as those in need – all amidst considerable confusion. These actors include government, volunteers, aid workers, journalists, medics, the military, telecoms workers and many more besides.

Yet all too often, coordination of communication is a challenge in a crisis. The media doesn’t traditionally work in partnership with aid workers and the government; they actually often mistrust each other, as the media usually plays an important role in holding the other two accountable. But getting information to people in need after a disaster requires them all to work effectively together.

Nor are humanitarian agencies always coordinated in their approach to communicating with communities. Following the Nepal earthquake, there were instances of different agencies bidding for the same prime broadcast slots to ensure their message reached more people than other agencies, rather than collectively determining a package of key information so people could hear the full range of what they needed to know.

So we’re faced with two challenges. Firstly, crisis-affected people need life-saving information and, secondly, the organisations working to help them may – in turn – need some help to better understand each other. ‘Lifeline’, a special type of media programming ��tv Media Action uses in humanitarian crises, can help address both these tricky issues. It does this by bringing media, humanitarians and government agencies together around the common goal of getting life-saving information to crisis-affected people.

A meeting of minds – to meet needs

Lifeline programming differs from conventional news reporting in that it is for people in an emergency rather than about them. Aimed at alleviating people’s suffering and assisting with their recovery, it should not only be timely and accurate but also practical, accurate, accessible, engaging and motivating. Lifeline programming can help people make decisions about what to do next, cope with physical and psychosocial suffering, and help them get them back to some kind of ‘normal’.

In the chaotic days and weeks after a humanitarian crisis hits, ensuring such vital information reaches the people who need it, when they need it and in a language they understand is no mean feat. The difficulty of this task is why it’s so important that all the many groups involved in relief efforts communicate with one another in a transparent and effective way.

However, this is not a foregone conclusion. Humanitarians, government and the media will instinctively describe the information they’re sharing with crisis-affected communities in different terms, which can lead to disjointed, contradictory or incoherent information being shared.

Fortunately, this hurdle isn’t insurmountable, as we’ve learned from training a range of organisations how to communicate with crisis-affected people in 13 countries over the past four years. We recently evaluated our lifeline preparedness work in Myanmar and Nepal, which included training humanitarian, government and media practitioners. The study showed that the training built confidence amongst practitioners and was effective in strengthening ties between the three groups. Trainees went on to draw on new relationships and skills in responding to the Nepal earthquakes and Myanmar flooding in 2015.

Having identified common purposes and points of mutual understanding, trainees were keen to collaborate in future on both accurately sharing important information and communicating it to the people who needed it most. They had perhaps come to realise the languages they spoke were not so different after all.

As one trainee from a humanitarian agency in Nepal put it: “Journalists from other media organisations started lifeline programmes. When they tried to contact ministries and humanitarian agencies it all went smoothly as they knew media would be contacting them for precious lifeline information. This would not have happened before.”

The need for lifeline programming is only growing

Over the last 20 years, 1.35 million people have died in more than 7,000 disaster events, with earthquakes and tsunamis the biggest killers, followed closely by climate-related disasters, such as drought, flooding and tropical storms. A staggering 90% of these deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries.

As though this was not enough to contend with, the world is facing a host of other new and escalating threats. Conflict is displacing record numbers of people, whose desire for information is as great as their need for shelter, food and healthcare. Yet the politics of conflict make it incredibly difficult to provide them with communication as aid.

So with conflicts likely to rage on and climate-related disasters set to increase, both in number and intensity, it seems that there will be a pressing need for lifeline programming.

To better meet this need, the media for development community should pool evidence on what kind of communication works best in conflict settings and how best to prepare stakeholders to source, produce and disseminate it. Our evaluation suggests there should also be greater investment in communication preparedness, which includes building relationships between media, humanitarians and the government, at an individual and organisational level, to work together when crisis strikes.

After all, saving lives is not only about acting sooner and smarter, but working together.

Katy Williams is Research Editor at ��tv Media Action.

This blog is based on ��tv Media Action’s What role does lifeline preparedness play in enabling effective communication in a crisis? research report.

Lifeline programming guides and an online course are available on the ��tv Media Action iLearn website.

We need more media coverage of disaster prevention

2016-10-12T13:33:16+00:00

Marking International Day for Disaster Reduction, Marcus Oxley argues that we need more media coverage of disasters before – rather than after – they happen. This would make prevention more of a priority, allowing more people to ‘live to tell’.

After big disasters, the world responds with compassion for the victims and the humanitarian assistance machine kicks into gear. National and local governments respond with rescue operations. Other countries offer assistance. International NGOs deploy personnel and provide shelter, food and basic health services. Local and international media show images of the destruction and share victims’ appeals for support with the world. The international public responds with donations to alleviate the suffering of their fellow human beings.

And that is the way it should be. As human beings, it is our duty to do everything in our power to help with rescuing and treating the injured, and support efforts to bring communities back to normality. However, there is a flaw with this system of responding to disasters.

Ensuring more people ‘live to tell’

Nothing can be done – not by governments, institutions, civil society, communities or the media – to bring back the dead. “Everything can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be recovered, and that's what hurts the most." said Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa, after the April 2016 earthquake killed 661 people in his country.

With the devastating effects of Hurricane Matthew still fresh in our minds, we mark International Day for Disaster Reduction on October 13th. This year, the theme is ‘Live to Tell’, to raise awareness of the need to curb the amount of lives lost by disasters, big and small.

Extreme weather events, like droughts and cyclones, aren’t as deadly as they used to be but mortality rates still aren’t going down fast enough. Plus the death rate for earthquakes is actually rising due to the high number of vulnerable communities living in unplanned urban settlements.

In 2015, world leaders agreed in Sendai, Japan, that disasters need to be made less deadly. But how? The answer is investing in and raising the profile of disaster prevention.

The media should be active before, not just after, a disaster hits

We all have a role to play in promoting prevention, including the media. How many times have you read a newspaper op-ed that asks: ‘What could have been done to prevent this catastrophe?’ Often asked rhetorically, this question is rarely answered by the author though it certainly should be. There is always a lot that could’ve been done and the answers are well-known locally by disaster-hit communities, civil society and government.

But here’s the catch. Prevention work isn’t an appealing topic for the public and so is understandably largely ignored by the media. Early warning systems, community preparedness, participatory budgeting, local government by-laws all sound as boring as watching paint dry. So I cannot blame the media for not making disaster prevention the biggest TV hit since ‘The Great British Bake Off’.

However, the local and international press can be powerful agents of change, through raising the profile of prevention by asking more incisive questions. Were effective early warning systems in place? Why were people’s homes built there in the first place? Were communities sufficiently prepared? Are government’s policies on disaster prevention adequate? Is local government preparedness properly funded? In short, journalists should be asking themselves: who is responsible for this disaster?

Speaking more broadly, the media can investigate root causes, raise the alarm about failings, interrogate inefficient policies and denounce corruption, negligence, malpractice and the lack of enforcement of regulations. This is what they should be doing not only after but also – most importantly – before the next extreme event strikes.

Working more closely with local media and NGOs

In addition to their important disaster response role, local media in particular can create public thirst for disaster prevention, for involving vulnerable communities in developing better policies and for demanding resources for local governments. Local media can also partner with civil society organisations to: discover and report on prevention work already being done, run national advocacy campaigns and hold politicians to account.

It is a challenging task but the rewards are worth it – saving lives when disasters strike. And the media does not need to go it alone; it has a valuable ally in civil society, especially in local NGOs.

While international NGOs will be on-the-ground and ready to talk to the media about rescue and relief operations, they’ve often just arrived (just like reporters) and so usually know little about the communities affected.

Local NGOs, on the other hand, are usually the first to respond after the communities themselves. They can serve as some of the media’s best sources of information about why there’s been devastation and what could have been done to prevent it. Local NGOs typically know communities well and have often assessed the most vulnerable areas and groups of the population. Partners like my organisation, the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR), can help the media to identify and contact these local NGOs and other key local actors that can lead positive change.

Think again about reports of Hurricane Matthew’s impact on Haiti and the USA. More than 500 people died in one country, 22 in the other. It’s not random that one hurricane led to such different outcomes in the two countries. Investment of time, money and energy in prevention is what will shrink this disparity, making the difference between life and death. Journalists have a crucial role in raising the profile of disaster prevention, so more people can live to tell.

Marcus Oxley is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR).

Who to follow on Twitter if you’re interested in international development, media and communication

2016-08-18T08:00:00+00:00

A list of Twitter accounts covering governance, health and humanitarian affairs that are well worth following.

August is a time for recharging on holiday, resurrecting neglected projects and… refreshing social media feeds. To help reboot your Twitter timeline, here are some recommendations of international development accounts to follow.

In an attempt to transcend the #commisaid and #mediadev silos, this list includes opinion makers (and sharers) from the wider governance, health and humanitarian communities – ��tv Media Action’s three main themes – with an appreciation for the role of media and communication in development.

The aim is to feature a variety of voices from across the great expanse of the Twittersphere, so hopefully you'll nod with recognition at some familiar handles while also getting introduced to some new faces who should definitely be on your radar.

Governance

@fp2p: Duncan Green, Oxfam's Senior Strategic Adviser, runs one of the best-known international development blogs. Follow for updates on all the sector’s hot topics from #WormWars to ‘doing development differently’.

@alanhudson1: Executive Director for @GlobalIntegrity. Tweets about open government and corruption, while providing a weekly round-up of links on accountability.

@Shaistajafri: Manila-based Shaista Hussain works for the Asian Development Bank. Expect articles on a wide range of subjects, from gender to NASA, alongside live updates from conferences and inspirational quotes.

@MssZeeUsman: Zainab Usman is a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development (@ODID_QEH). A keen-eyed watcher of Nigeria and all things Africa.

@WordsAreDeeds: Kate Ferguson, Research and Policy Director at UK NGO Protection Approaches (@IBVprev). Looks at the interplay between communication and countering violent extremism, a topic of growing interest within the international development and foreign policy communities.

Humanitarian

@SaleemulHuq: Director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development (@ICCCAD) in Bangladesh and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (@IIED). Follow for updates on adaptation to climate change.

@BenParker140: Co-founder of @irinnews. Offers an acerbic take on the aid world, which is humorous while not being afraid to take a critical look at the humanitarian system.

@JoanneLiu_MSF: International President of medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières‎ (@MSF). Follow for updates on MSF’s work and the organisation’s position on key developments in the humanitarian sector.

@SaraPantuliano: Managing Director at the Overseas Development Institute (@ODIdev). Tweets frankly about the refugees crisis, South Sudan and conflict.

@NEAR_Network: The newly founded Network for Empowered Aid Response (NEAR) reflects the growing push for increased localisation of humanitarian action.

Health

@glassmanamanda: Amanda Glassman, Director of Global Health Policy at the Center for Global Development (@CGDev) and co-author of Millions Saved, a collection of success stories in global health.

@HansRosling: Professor of Global Health at the @karolinskainst. A must-follow for those interested in data and global health.

@globalhlthtwit: Anthony Costello, Director of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health at the World Health Organisation (@WHO). Tweet topics range from immunisation rates in India to maternity leave in the US. There's also a dash of sport, politics and medical history for good measure.

@UCLGlobalHealth: University College London feed that not only promotes their own inter-disciplinary activities, but also shares global health content from a variety of other sources.

@defeatDD: Intent on breaking “the poo taboo”, this is a feed firmly focused on how to defeat deadly diarrhoea through a combination of means, from oral rehydration salts to breastfeeding to vaccines.

And finally, time for a little self-promotion. ��tv Media Action tweets as @bbcmediaaction and details of a few of our staff tweeting about governance, health and humanitarian issues can be found below.

@JamesMDeane: Director of Policy and Learning. Follow for insights on how #mediadev relates to the broader governance agenda.

@SLPWilkinson: Senior Health Adviser. Particularly interested in nutrition, immunisation and WASH, as well as reproductive, maternal and sexual health.

@JackieD_��tv: Lifeline Programme Senior Producer/Trainer. Tweeting about communication in emergencies.

But who’s your favourite international development tweeter? Share your recommendations in the comments or tweet us at @bbcmediaaction.

Melanie Archer is Digital Editor of the Media Action Insight blog; she tweets as @MelanieBArcher.

"You runaway": the challenges of research in South Sudan

2016-08-11T08:00:00+00:00

Writing from Juba, Research Manager Trish Doherty explains the importance of conducting research in conflict-affected countries like South Sudan – despite the very real risks for both researchers and the people they speak to.

“You runaway people”. This is how I was greeted upon returning to South Sudan last week. Along with many other colleagues, I had left the country following the outbreak of violence in July when ��tv Media Action’s Juba office – though not our operations – was temporarily closed. Now that we are all back in the capital, our thoughts are on how to continue our programme activities and research. This consideration is, sadly, not a new one. Marked by four decades of war, South Sudan (formerly part of Sudan) is a country in which continued fighting, sudden outbreaks of localised violence, food insecurity and rumours and misinformation have profound implications for people’s lives. These trends also affect what we are able to research and how.

What are the risks?

Violence is not rare in South Sudan and is just one of the country’s very real risks, which periodically reach heights that mandate some of us ‘running away’. Over the years, colleagues have been greeted with suspicion, intimidation and even imprisonment. And this only speaks to the risks faced by researchers. For the participants in our studies, the risks can be equally, if not more, severe. They might be afraid about how their answers will be used. Any mention of the “��tv” can raise fears that we’re spying or acting on behalf of foreign governments or, alternatively, give people the impression that what they say will be aired on radio or TV. Furthermore, there is the very real possibility that asking people questions can resurrect past or ongoing trauma or create an expectation that services will be provided or their needs catered to immediately.

So why do research at all in a country like South Sudan?

Audiences are at the heart of what we do at ��tv Media Action. It is vital we hear back from them so we can inform and refine programme activities to better suit their needs. Our research provides an opportunity for participant and implementer alike to speak openly about what works and what doesn’t, what needs to be done and what needs to stop. Working in a fragile and conflict-affected environment can make the need for this feedback more important than ever.

As a Médecins Sans Frontières‎ paper put it, research in conflict settings – while needing to be approached with care and strict ethical guidelines – is necessary to alleviate the vulnerability of these populations and to minimise the potential “for complacency among those responsible or who contribute to their unfortunate plight”. I would emphasise that research in these settings is just as important to mitigate the potential complacency of those in the humanitarian and development sectors, who, despite the best of intentions, may not necessarily be delivering the most effective of interventions.

When we in the research team speak to our programmes’ audiences, we hear a range of stories. These include heart-warming stories like that of Stella, who spoke of how she learnt about the need to go for antenatal care check-ups and deliver in a health facility by listening to Our Tukul, a radio show about health. Our research also enables audiences to tell us what is not working for them. For example, our programmes are sometimes not in the right language and the information they provide sometimes contradicts what people hear from other sources, leaving them confused. Sometimes people might not have the money to put our programmes’ advice into practice, like send their children to school.

Much of this feedback directly leads to programme changes. For example, our programmes are increasingly made in local languages and we are always expanding our outreach activities so communities can discuss what they hear on the shows. We have also incorporated new content that focuses on things like budget management and financial planning.

Just as ��tv Media Action surveys audiences to determine what works and what doesn’t with our programmes, other development and humanitarian organisations can and do refine their operations by collecting and incorporating feedback from those they serve.

How should we conduct research in these settings?

For a checklist on how to do research in conflict settings such as South Sudan, I’d recommend the recent World Bank blog by Markus Goldstein and “the crowd”. Reading it with my research colleagues here in Juba, we smiled at just how accurately it speaks to the many challenges we face, including: how do we plan for the ‘bad stuff’, how do we ensure we don’t ask stupid or harmful questions, how can we make it comfortable for people to speak to us about their personal experiences and views and what does our data mean outside of the particular environment we collected it in? The tips of Goldstein et. al. provide a guide to trying to get it right.

What’s next?

Since our office reopened, the research team in South Sudan has been working on survey data gathered through our maternal and child health and girls’ education projects. We’ve also been reporting on our qualitative capacity strengthening evaluation with partner radio stations. As our work continues, we will keep on looking at what’s relevant and what’s not, what’s needed and why and making sure our research enables projects to best meet the needs of a population facing all manner of risks.

Trish Doherty is ��tv Media Action's South Sudan Research Manager. She has worked across health, governance, humanitarian response and resilience projects at ��tv Media Action using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

When the skill of questioning is listening: interviewing refugees in Europe

2016-07-19T13:00:00+00:00

Having recently undertaken the perilous journey from Damascus to Berlin, researcher and filmmaker Reem Karssli – now seeking asylum in Germany – had a strong connection with the people she interviewed for ��tv Media Action’s research into the communication needs of refugees in Europe.

Filmmaker Reem Karssli knows first-hand the importance of reliable communications to refugees. Six months ago, she fled the war in Syria and is now a refugee herself in Germany where she became part of the team researching the communication needs of refugees for ��tv Media Action’s Voices of Refugees report.

“You have to be more than patient – you have to be a saint,” Reem, 29, told me. “We lost four years of our lives in the war. Now we are losing more time just waiting – for papers, to understand our legal status, to learn the language…and throughout all this we never know what’s going to happen to us next.”

The report examines the priority information and communication needs of refugees in three areas: on their journey, in "transit" camps in Greece and in Germany.

Reem’s task was to interview 13 refugees who had reached Berlin.

Her impressive CV includes working for ��tv Media Action in Jordan, but since becoming a refugee she has not been allowed to work so did the research for this study voluntarily.

Reem arrived in Germany’s capital last September after she and her brother bid farewell to their parents and sisters in Damascus, flew to Istanbul, before travelling with smugglers by boat across the Mediterranean. They then travelled, mainly by bus, from mainland Greece, through the Western Balkans corridor to Berlin (which was closed in March). “You just had to be crazy to take that decision,” she says. “There was no information at all. We just followed everyone else.”

Reem told me the fact that she had already "made the journey" allowed her to connect with her interviewees. They were often weary of being interviewed by various agencies and fed up with still seeing no change in their situation. But very few were reluctant to share their story with her.

“I understand these people. Their stories are familiar to me and they trust me – I am not an outsider. I could share my experience with them and invite them to share theirs with me. I tried not to just question – I tried to listen, to let them talk, talk and talk more.”

Reem’s interviewees were at the "end" of their long and perilous journeys – sometimes as long as 3000 miles. So were they relieved to be safe at last? She found that rather depended upon where they were in the "process". Those who had managed to find an apartment and attend language/integration courses felt some sense of moving forward, of regaining control of their lives and had some optimism.

But few had had their expectations met. They felt bewildered by paperwork. They were confused by the system. Having survived long and dangerous journeys, having protected the most vulnerable in their travelling groups – babies, toddlers, the elderly, sick and disabled – they found themselves powerless to effect further change and short of reliable information about their options.

This is echoed throughout our research and the findings highlight refugees’ overarching need for critical information about their current and future situation, and their need to be listened to, to participate in dialogue that provides them with physical, social and psychosocial support. Many require trauma counselling.

Many of the people she spoke to were living in the decommissioned Tempelhof airport in central Berlin, where they expected to live for the first six months. At the time of the survey, an estimated 2000 refugees were living in this ¼ km long building.

With so many people from different countries and ethnic groups, speaking diverse languages, crammed together and nobody knowing what was going to happen next, tensions often threatened to erupt into violence. Security was high.

The tensions were heightened by the fact that some originated from higher priority source countries – e.g. Syria, Iran, Iraq and Eritrea – and were more likely to be able to attend language/integration courses and be granted asylum status.

“People were not just frustrated, they were traumatised by their situation there,” says Reem, “They couldn’t do anything because they had no money. Two families I spoke with had asked to go back to Iraq. They couldn’t stand it any more. For most their expectations had not been met.”

“You survive the war, you survive the journey and then you are stuck in this place.”

The research highlighted the importance of consistent communication between agencies and refugees to help reduce widespread confusion, foster tolerance between groups and help avert dangerous information vacuums in which rumour and anecdote can fuel powerlessness, panic and violence.

Indeed, the analysis also shows that participants who stay in regular contact with other refugees and who have wide communication networks (e.g. mobile networks and social networking sites/groups such as Facebook and WhatsApp) are likely to be more resilient than those who are less connected.

This need for clarity was a major concern for refugees at all stages in their journey – including the so-called endpoint.

Katy Williams is Research Editor at ��tv Media Action.

Voices of Refugees report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/publications-and-resources/research/reports/voices-of-refugees

��tv Media Action main website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction

This blog is cross-posted on The Huffington Post.

How can humanitarian broadcasting help support recovery from crises?

2016-07-07T08:00:00+00:00

When disaster strikes – whether in the form of an earthquake, conflict or epidemic – people need the right information to understand what is happening and how they can best respond. In recent years, the humanitarian community has increasingly recognised the importance of providing accurate and trusted information and using communication in crises. However, there is very little evidence available of what actually works best in information and communication responses to emergencies, not least because it is so difficult to do robust research. ��tv Media Action’s recent report looks at how to meet these challenges and, by synthesising research from across four of its emergency responses, adds to the evidence base of what does and doesn’t work.

The ��tv began delivering media and communications interventions in 1994, when it set up a new language service after the Rwandan genocide to provide ‘Lifeline’ communications to families who had been separated.

Since then, ��tv Media Action (often with the ��tv) has carried out 28 such responses, providing critical information to people affected by humanitarian crises and disasters. Independent evaluations of our work have shown that these communities not only value but need information – to understand what’s happened, where their family and friends are and how they can get the best available help. In short, this information plays a critically important role in saving and rebuilding lives during and after a crisis.

However, we have also learned that it’s extremely difficult to know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to: best practice around working effectively with communication partners, the types of information people need as a crisis evolves and rebuilding begins, the formats they need it delivered in and how best to facilitate their communication with the relevant authorities.

To address this, we have synthesised our findings from four of these interventions into a single report, Humanitarian Broadcasting In Emergencies – a synthesis of evaluation findings. It draws on our responses and subsequent learning based on work we did: in Nepal following the earthquakes in 2015; with Syrian refugees; amid the 2014 conflict in Gaza and during the 2015 Ebola outbreak in west Africa.

In this short film, the report’s author, Theo Hannides, expands on the challenges for development researchers in measuring the efficacy of media interventions. She also explains what this report contributes to the evidence base around information and communication, which is used by the media development sector – as well as the wider development sector – when designing humanitarian responses.

Introductory text by James Deane, Director of Policy and Learning at ��tv Media Action.

Theo Hannides is a Humanitarian Media Trainer at ��tv Media Action. She prepared this report in her capacity as Research Manager, focused on the areas of resilience and humanitarian response, based in the Research and Learning team in London.

Media, communication and the future of development

2016-06-29T10:08:15+00:00

Our director of policy and learning welcomes you to a new resource on why and how media and communication matters in international development.

To someone with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

It is the criticism levelled at many areas of international development.

To an economist, sort out economic policy and prosperity will follow. To a civil society activist, sort out access to rights and justice, then fairness will follow. To a governance specialist, sort out the effectiveness of government institutions, and good governance will follow.

And to someone working in media and communication, sort out the reliability of information available to people on the issues that concern them and the freedom people have to debate and voice their views, then development might thrive in an informed society where people can act to advance their interests, their wellbeing and their societies.

��tv Media Action’s hammer is media and communication – but we accept that not all development challenges that exist can be fixed by our particular type of nail. A radio programme will not build a hydro-electric dam, the mobile phone will not meet a shortage of trained doctors or teachers, the television will not miraculously conjure economic growth from a resource-poor country.

But while media and communication interventions won’t develop a new vaccine, they might make sure people demand it when it is available; while they won’t determine the most effective development policy for a post-conflict state, they might help people make an informed choice when they vote on whether that policy is right for them; while they won’t build a school or hospital, they might help people find out if and why the money designated for it goes missing.

Welcome to ��tv Media Action Insight, a new ��tv Media Action blog that seeks to illuminate the challenges that media and communication can help tackle within the sphere of international development. The blog is part of a new expanded area of the ��tv Media Action website, Research and Insight, where we will be showcasing data, evidence, analysis and commentary on the role of media and communication in development.

Our hope is to engage especially those of you working on issues of international development, including those who might be more interested in development than you are in media. We hope this includes researchers and academics, policy makers and decision-makers, policy actors and development practitioners, donors and NGOs and, of course, media and communication organisations.

Yes, we will talk on this space a bit about media and communication – digital and analogue, radio and mobile, television and internet. But our main aim is to share insights about the role of media and communication within the three themes on which our organisation works: governance and rights, health, and resilience and humanitarian response.

Within the realm of governance and rights, that means issues of politics and participation, loyalty and identity, society and state, nation and community, democracy and accountability, governance and conflict. In the health sphere, we hope to spark policy and research conversations on using communication to reduce maternal and infant mortality, reduce the transmission of malaria and HIV and increase the demands for vital services, such as vaccines. In our third theme of humanitarian and resilience, it will be about the critical role of information in responding to earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and famines, and how media and communication can help those most vulnerable to adapt to sudden events - such as cyclones or earthquakes - and long-term strains - such as changes in the climate or economic crises.

So why this site and why now? Part of the answer to that question is that ��tv Media Action has a good deal of data, analysis and experience in these areas that we need to get better at publishing and sharing. We hope to do that here.

But there is a more fundamental reason. We believe that the role of media and communication in shaping development outcomes is becoming increasingly recognised in everything from the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, to the agreement at the UN of a post-2015 sustainable development dedicated to improving peace, justice and strong institutions (including ensuring “public access to information”) to the growing emphasis on using communication to improve public health and beyond.

We hope that the content posted here and the research, policy and practitioner conversations they spark will be as much about people as they are about technology, as much as about society as they are about state or government and as much about evidence and learning around what is working as they are about highlighting the latest tech breakthrough or development start up.

Above all, we hope that those in the international development community will use the insight from this new area of our website to develop a stronger understanding and – ultimately – a stronger interest in the role of media and communication.

Finally, this blog and new area of our website are focused on the role of media and communication in the countries in which ��tv Media Action, as an international development charity mostly works: in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. It is not our purpose to focus on the role of media in the UK and much of the blog’s content will originate the experience of our staff around the world. However ��tv Media Action Insight is launched in a week where our own country is gripped by considerable turmoil. One of our first blogs reflects on what we can learn from that experience.

James Deane is Director of Policy and Learning at ��tv Media Action.

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