Infoasaid

Internews and the BBC World Service Trust are partners in a DfID funded consortium focusing on improving how aid agencies communicate with disaster affected communities. The emphasis is on the need to deliver information, as aid itself, through the most appropriate channels ...more

CDAC

infoasaid is a collaborative project of two CDAC (Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities) members. CDAC’s central objective is to provide a coordinated service to enable humanitarian operations to get lifesaving information to affected populations and to channel their voices back to the providers of assistance working with local media and non mass media communications

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Media and Telecoms Landscape Guides

infoasaid is producing a series of media and telecoms landscape guides to developing countries that are vulnerable to humanitarian crises.

These are designed as a tool to help humanitarian agencies to communicate effectively with crisis-affected communities.

All the countries to be profiled are states where the international community is likely to play a major role in responding to humanitarian crises.

The guides contain practical information about media consumption habits and news and information flows in each country.

They profile the main media organisations and their audiences. They also highlight the news, information and entertainment channels that reach vulnerable sectors of the population. The guides show which languages and which media outlets reach different communities most effectively.

Each country guide identifies local partners who can help to produce radio and TV programmes and public service announcements and ensure that these are broadcast to the target audience in a timely manner.

Each guide also contains practical information about mobile phone coverage and mobile phone and internet usage patterns.

Mobile phone use and internet access are expanding rapidly across the world. In the last decade, mobile gaming is rapidly expanding, with more and more people using their smartphones to play games such as slot, connect with friends, and access information on-the-go. Voice and text messages and social networking sites offer new platforms for aid agencies to establish an effective dialogue with the communities they are trying to assist.

Cases where these new channels of communication have been used successfully for communication with beneficiaries are documented.

The countries to be profiled have been chosen in accordance with objective criteria, widely used by early warning specialists. Some are mainly at risk of natural disaster caused by climate change, extreme weather and seismic activity. Others are exposed to the consequences of human conflict. Many are at risk of both factors.

All the countries to be profiled have a strong track record of international involvement in disaster response. They also show clear potential for the media to be used as a platform for useful dialogue between the aid agencies and their beneficiaries.

The following country guides are available

Afghanistan

Cote d’Ivoire

Guinea

Kenya

Pakistan

Sudan

The views expressed in these documents do not reflect those of either the BBC or Internews, rather they reflect the views of the infoasaid project.

More country guides will follow during the course of 2011.

To provide additional input or make comments, please email and .