成人论坛

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.

成人论坛 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 , 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 , and other , to ensure communities’ perspectives are being heard.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 has been a frequent focus of the bulletins, reflecting community concerns: the most recent 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 , 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 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.

成人论坛 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 成人论坛 Media Action, based in London. Read more about our humanitarian response on our website.