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How media is helping during Afghanistan’s hunger crisis

2023-03-21T12:06:23+00:00

A market in Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of Getty.

Our head of communications, Carolynne Wheeler, caught up with our Afghanistan project manager, Mursal Abrar, and our Afghanistan research manager, Mahdi Zaki, to learn about our project focused on nutrition with the World Food Programme.

Carolynne: Mahdi, Mursal – thank you for joining me! Please can you tell me about what we have been doing with the World Food Programme to address the current crisis in Afghanistan?

Mursal: Our World Food Programme (WFP) funded project began because Afghanistan is in a major crisis related to food security. According to recent WFP data, 19.9 million people in Afghanistan face acute food insecurity and 6 million Afghans face emergency-level food insecurity. The concept of our project was to help build the resilience of people in this crisis – to help them to cope and to improve their diet and nutrition with what limited resources they have. We wanted to create programming that would discuss symptoms of malnutrition, and to look at how to help women eat nutritious foods during pregnancy.

We also wanted to tackle the taboos that exist around certain foods in Afghanistan. Our culture is very focused on the importance of meat and bread. Lentils, for instance, are seen as food only for the poorest people, although they are very nutritious. Vegetables are widely available but also not seen as important.

We had a lot of discussion around affordable, healthy eating, and celebrating different foods – including plants, protein and dairy - that are still widely available in Afghanistan.

Carolynne: One of the questions you had to address at the start of this project is, how can media and communication help when you have so many millions of people who are food insecure. How did you handle this?

Mahdi: Before the start of the project, we had this discussion among ourselves, especially the research team. At the time, we were saying that over 22 million people were in need of food assistance, and in the last year it has increased to 28 million. So we had this tough moral discussion. We were spending money to produce media outputs; shouldn’t this money be used to help people buy bread to feed their children?

We began with research, to find out how media could help. We did a nationally representative survey for this project, speaking with over 3,000 people around the country – men and women. Around 40% of the interviews were face-to-face because more than 40% of people in Afghanistan do not have access to mobile phones.

We also did some qualitative interviews with women, IDPs (internally displaced people), Kuchi nomadic people and people with disabilities. And we asked questions including what is their usual diet, who makes decisions about what to eat for meals, who purchases food, what information sources could they access, and what information do they have about nutrition and nutritious food?

We found two types of families – those who were really struggling to feed themselves, and those who had some food, but did not know how they could make nutritious meals.

We also learned that doctors are major influencers when it comes to health and nutrition, and that people trusted radio and TV most.

Carolynne: You have said that in Afghanistan, when people think about their daily meal, most people think first of bread, then of red meat and rice. How did you tackle these traditional beliefs in your programmes?

Mahdi: Red meat is considered as the highest standard. When you invite people to your house you have to cook meat and rice. That would be considered a proper meal. Vegetables are never welcomed! Traditionally we cook with a lot of oil.

We had to look at who is cooking – usually women - and who is buying in the market – which can be women or men. The programme encouraged audiences to discuss what they have to prepare, to make a meal plan for what they want to cook. We discussed the importance of nutrition for children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and older people, to maintain their strength.

We also looked at how people were spending money on food. In Afghanistan, people traditionally eat a lot of bread. So the programme looked at how people could go to the market and, instead of buying 10 loaves of bread for 100 Afghanis, they could buy five loaves of bread and spend the rest of the money on potatoes and other vegetables. In this way, they could diversify their diet and consume a more nutritious meal.

Carolynne: Now that the programming has been on air, what have you learned about its impact?

Mursal: We have done an evaluation and we have heard some feedback from communities who are very marginalised that this weekly radio programme really helped them. They said that they understand they can prepare a healthy and nutritious meal with different foods, even with a limited income. Previously, they understood they could only have bread. We also shared information about how to access humanitarian aid and food distribution.

Mahdi: The most satisfactory finding is when we found that the information provided by our radio programme was helpful to people. It had provided them with a perspective that they could diversify their meal, instead of just eating bread. The programme provided them with the information that vegetables could be very nutritious. It helped people who are very poor, earning maybe just 100 or 200 Afghanis a day. In the past, that person might think we can only buy some loaves of bread, and it has changed their perspective of what they can have for a meal.

Mursal: This finding was very touching for us, and it was the highlight of the programme, because we really wanted to build the resiliency of people in this crisis.

Madhi: Here is what some of our listeners said about our work:

“In the past, we used to buy a large flour bags and consume within two weeks. After we listened to [the radio programme], now we consume the same bag in one month. I have started work with livestock. I have learnt about these after listening to this programme and I want this programme to continue.”

- A 50-year man living in an IDP camp in Herat province

“I am pregnant and the programme has helped me a lot. After listening to this programme, I have started consuming vegetables and diversified my diet. Vegetables are cheap and we can make nutritious food, and also they are very useful for women who breastfeed their child and pregnant women like me. And the programme also talked about beans which are also very important to us.”

- A 28-year woman living in an IDP camp in Herat province

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Our media and communication for development project with the World Food Programme ran from July 2022 to February 2023, and included a radio magazine-style programme, Destarkhan (Dinner Table), with community members and nutrition experts discussing nutrition and food security; a radio drama with messages on nutrition; and public service announcements on how to access food assistance from aid agencies. To learn more about our work in Afghanistan, please see our website.

'It was as if the moon had landed on the Earth' - working through turmoil in Afghanistan

2021-12-16T12:33:14+00:00

Shoaib Sharifi is �� Media Action’s country director in Afghanistan and this year’s �� News Leader of the Year. He writes about how the team are responding to an increasingly grave humanitarian crisis.

On the morning of 15 August, I stood in front of my closet and chose one of my sharpest Western-style suits to wear to the office. To this day, I cannot explain why – except that nothing suggested that this day would be very different from the day before.

In the office, the workday began as usual, with preparation for a training session with humanitarian aid workers. But by 11 o’clock that morning, we heard the news that the Taliban had entered Kabul.

We could not believe it – it felt as though someone had told us the moon had landed on the Earth. It will take another year for us to digest these events.

What happens next?

My immediate concern was for the welfare of our team, particularly our female colleagues. Hours-long traffic jams in the streets made it difficult to ensure people’s safe return home; many resorted to walking, in small groups for additional security. Full of regret for having chosen this suit, which prevented me from blending in, I waited until nightfall for my own departure. There had been numerous targeted killings each day in Kabul before the Taliban’s takeover, with many journalists among them.

The next day we asked ourselves: what happens next? And we realised we were not prepared to stop working.

Shoaib Sharifi interviewing a doctor as part of our magazine-style health programme for radio. Credit: �� Media Action

The safety and welfare of colleagues was the first priority. But the other priority was our audiences. Many radio stations stopped broadcasting, out of fear, and we knew our audiences needed us more than ever.

No one was asked to come into work – but some did, at great risk, while others worked from home. In this difficult and dangerous situation, we have tried to focus on audience needs. Within the first few weeks, 2,000 health centres, including major hospitals, were closed down across the country.

We had been producing a radio health programme twice per month, focused on COVID-19 and broadcast on �� Afghan service and on 30 community radio stations, reaching up to 12 million people. Now, people were without meaningful public health services, so we increased our programme frequency to twice per week – once in Dari and once in Pashto. We enlisted doctors to help us in a new programme segment, Where There Is No Doctor – covering topics like how to nurse patients at home.

Skyrocketing mental health needs

All of �� Media Action’s work is based on audience research. In September, we were able to carry out research, mainly by mobile phone, to assess our audiences’ needs for health information. What came back was startling: 62% of respondents identified a need for mental health support. Stress, anxiety and depression had skyrocketed.

We created a question-and-answer segment for our radio programme, and asked our audience to send in voice messages with their questions and experiences, to be addressed with a counsellor on the next show. We were overwhelmed with hundreds of calls, from both men and women.

Amid all the hardship and risk, we have had this incredible feeling of being able to respond in an emergency with information that really matters. People are without incomes, without healthcare and without the information they need to make informed decisions. Where do they turn? In a crisis, radio is still the most important source of media for Afghans.

Shoaib Sharifi during a break from Lifeline training with local journalists in Kandahar. Credit: �� Media Action

We realised that we could reach more people if we used our Lifeline programming to train more community journalists to report effectively in a crisis. We worked around the clock to adapt training materials into Dari and Pashto - a month’s worth of translating, editing and subtitling in one week. We weren’t even sure anyone would turn up. But in our first session we were amazed to see 25 participants, including six women. We have further built these connections through WhatsApp groups: answering questions, helping with story ideas and interview questions, and assessing listener needs.

We have also carried on working with the humanitarian response community, conducting research and sharing our findings to help aid agencies respond to people’s needs more effectively.

Proud to serve our audiences

The last days and weeks have been a blur of constant work and worry. The humanitarian emergency is only deepening in Afghanistan, while security continues to be a grave concern. Some of us have elected to remain behind; we are also exploring a model where we work alongside some of our colleagues who have been evacuated from Afghanistan to the UK.

We don’t know what the future holds, but we are proud to be serving our audiences with the trusted information they so desperately need, and to help make the emergency response in Afghanistan as effective as it can be.

Learn more about �� Media Action’s work in Afghanistan or donate to our work through JustGiving (leads to a third-party site).

Handwashing with soap for health - our work in Afghanistan during COVID-19

2020-10-14T12:24:11+00:00

Nomadic people on a road north of Kabul.

In the spring of 2018, I paid a visit to a remote village of Afghanistan. As part of the villagers’ hospitality, I was served a warm cup of green tea along with some homemade cookies, and at first I was captivated by people’s stories about their culture and traditions.

Then, someone placed a large steel kettle, known in Afghanistan as a samovar, onto the fire to brew more tea. I was distracted by its NGO logo. Where did they get this samovar?

With a slight smirk, the villagers replied: “This was donated to us by an NGO for handwashing. We converted it into a samovar.”

My initial reaction was to contain my laughter at their cleverness, converting a portable sink into a samovar. But then my laughter turned into sadness at the outcome of the NGO’s efforts. They had spent so much money and effort, and in the end, their resources were not used as intended. They had not had the lasting impact they had hoped for.

I have been a humanitarian worker for the past eight years, leading various projects in providing basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and working on hygiene behaviour change in Afghanistan. What I have personally observed over the years is that, despite the prolonged presence of international humanitarian organisations, many have struggled to achieve the goal of sustained hygiene behaviour change.

This is because many WASH projects focus on providing services, rather than focusing on behaviour change from the very start. They may also focus on the idea of access to water, sanitation and hygiene as being the main outcome of their work, rather than a path to other benefits.

Awareness campaigns need to explain the health benefits, and promote these ideas in a way that results in people changing how and when they wash their hands. They will not work if they impose theories that do not consider the context, or the importance of hygiene in Afghan culture, religion or tradition at the most local level.

Afghan actor Mamnoon Maqsoodi voices a handwashing PSA in our Kabul studio.

What I have observed over the years of working on hygiene behaviour change projects is that to obtain long-term impact, you must:

Make sure behaviour change is at the forefront of the project, alongside service provision
Ensure hygiene awareness campaigns and approaches are rooted in local culture, traditions, religion and norms, with the intent of changing behaviour
Give local humanitarian organisations and civil societies the autonomy to develop context-based behaviour change approaches independently, based on their knowledge on the ground
Remember that when thinking about access to services, it may mean influencing local government agencies to change policies to meet local needs, or reconsidering an agency approach and adapting to what partners find works best locally
Use the power of media as an effective platform to contribute towards sustainable impact on hygiene behaviour change.

I am now working with �� Media Action to begin implementing a Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition project, funded by UK Aid and Unilever, focused on changing hygiene behaviours, including encouraging handwashing with soap, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The project targets two high-risk and under-served groups in Afghanistan, the urban poor and the nomadic Kuchi people. We will reach these audiences through radio and television public service announcements, and ‘fast fiction’ format storytelling rooted in local culture and tradition.

To start off this work, we have cast Mamnoon Maqsoodi, one of Afghanistan’s most famous cinema and theatre artists, to voice the first round of our TV and radio PSA campaigns. His famous voice is known to nearly all Afghan people.

We know that the majority of advertisements and PSAs use formal language and an official tone to convey their messages. We have taken a different approach, using colloquial language and a more informal tone that will resonate with our audiences.

To build our PSAs, we have undertaken a full behaviour change approach. This includes formative research, multiple workshops including the development of a theory of change, and multiple pre-tests of our content to ensure it will be effective as communication for behaviour change.

Afghan actor Mamnoon Maqsoodi washes his hands during our studio recording.

So enthusiastic was Mr Maqsoodi in embracing his character that he insisted on bringing a portable sink into the recording studio, to capture the realistic sounds and feeling of handwashing as he explained how to wash hands with soap to help fight the virus.

“This is so refreshing, to convey a message in this manner, which any Afghan will understand,” he said.

�� Media Action will work in Afghanistan and Somalia with the Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition until July 2021. Our aim is to focus on hygiene behaviour change that will support people to better protect themselves against COVID-19, and contribute to better health for themselves and their families. Some 80,000 children under five die each year in Afghanistan – and an estimated 12% of those are from diarrhoeal diseases, which can often be prevented with good hygiene including handwashing with soap.

It is my hope that this campaign, deeply rooted in local culture and tradition, will be the start of longer-term change in hygiene practice, and better health for some of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people.

A tale of two crises in Nepal

2020-08-18T11:08:56+00:00

Wearing face mask and also maintaining physical distancing, Milijuli Nepali producer Prakash Sundas interviewing a woman in a quarantine centre near Kathmandu.

KATHMANDU – When a deadly earthquake hit Nepal in April 2015, survivors like me were too scared to live in our own houses, even if they were not damaged. We all moved to temporary shelters amidst a series of aftershocks.

Five years later, we find ourselves in the midst of another crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. If the earthquake forced us to flee our houses, the pandemic has made it necessary to stay at home, and to maintain physical distancing if we step out.

After the earthquake, I had the opportunity to lead a �� Media Action team to produce Milijuli Nepali (‘Together Nepal’) – a daily Lifeline radio programme that served local communities with lifesaving messages, initially about food, shelter and sanitation, and then about reconstruction and retrofitting.

Milijuli Nepali became an instant hit because of its unique style of delivering messages through an amalgamation of folk music and stories. After more than 1,200 episodes, broadcast through local radios in the 14 districts worst affected by the earthquake, Milijuli Nepali took a break in March 2019.

A little more than a year later, as Nepal battles against a deadly coronavirus outbreak, we've relaunched Milijuli Nepali – this time with a mission to communicate vital health messages related to COVID-19.

And I'm thrilled to have another opportunity to do what I love, and what I'm good at: using information as aid to save lives during a humanitarian crisis.

Restarting lifeline communication

When Nepal confirmed its first coronavirus case in February, fear, anxiety and uncertainty spread like wildfire, just as in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. People had many unanswered questions about this invisible enemy that had already created a long trail of death and hardship around the world.

This situation got me thinking: I wish I could restart Milijuli Nepali so we could help people with trusted life-saving messages about COVID-19.

I then realised that I was not the only one to have thought that. I was called in for a meeting by our Country Director, Shobhana Pradhan, who had also felt the same urge to relaunch our Lifeline communication programme to save lives during the pandemic. That meeting was remarkably different from all our previous meetings at �� Media Action. Everyone sat at least two metres away from each other, and everyone wore masks.

When a second coronavirus case was confirmed in March, Nepal announced an indefinite nationwide lockdown. The government also sealed off the long porous Nepal-India border, and all domestic and international flights were suspended indefinitely.

We rapidly realised supporting our local media partners to make Lifeline programming would need to be virtual – and started testing video conferencing for remote mentoring.

The lockdown slowed the spread of the virus in Nepal, allowing the government and hospitals to buy valuable time to better prepare for an outbreak. It also gave us time to plan how we could produce daily Lifeline content during a pandemic.

Producing this programme after the earthquake had its own challenges, but at least we could go to the field and interact with people directly. But how do we record people's voices for radio when it would be morally, ethically, and even legally wrong to meet them?

We developed our plans to produce radio content with minimum physical contact with communities, while still interacting with them as much as possible. Our plans are simple: avoid going to the field, and conduct interviews mostly over phone. Our regular production meeting also takes place virtually.

By setting up a dedicated phoneline, we've ensured people can leave us direct messages. Our voicemail has started receiving encouraging messages by people from remote and inaccessible areas, where people rely on Milijuli Nepali for health information. One recently recorded voicemail came from Ran Maya Kandel, who called us from Baglung district in Nepal's remote western hills. She told us that she eagerly waits for Milijuli Nepali as the programme delivers 'important messages in interesting ways'.

She added: "I love Milijuli Nepali because its producers talk exactly like me, or like how we village people speak."

Our work has come just in time. Since the lockdown was lifted on 21 July, coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths have surged. In the six months after the first case, 40 people died of COVID-19. But once the country re-opened, the death toll almost tripled in just the first month.

The second season of Milijuli Nepali is now being aired through 46 radio stations, strategically selected from across the country so everyone can listen to it, wherever they are. The timing of our relaunch could not have been any better.

Similar but different

In 2015, we named our Lifeline radio show Milijuli Nepali because we wanted the programme to motivate all the Nepali people to stand together to physically help each other in rebuilding their houses, lives and livelihoods ravaged by the earthquake.

But in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the idea of helping each other to survive – it now means standing together by being physically apart.

In this new season, Milijuli Nepali still sticks to its approach of communicating trusted, actionable and vital messages in simple colloquial language, but it is now inspiring people to stand together in a way that has become the new normal for the post-pandemic world.

Bhuwan Timilsina is Project Manager for �� Media Action, Nepal

Preparing for Cyclone Amphan in the COVID-19 pandemic

2020-05-21T08:51:31+00:00

A �� Media Action cameraman films in a COVID-19 isolation centre in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo by Khandokar Hasanul Banna, �� Media Action

Nearly a million Rohingya people still live in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Having survived terrible violence, they now face the dual threats of the first confirmed cases of COVID-19, and flooding and landslides from Cyclone Amphan. Here is how �� Media Action is helping people prepare and cope.

Bangladesh is well-versed in cyclone preparation – but preparing for a cyclone in a time of global pandemic is something that perhaps no one in living memory has done before.

Cyclone Amphan has not hit Cox’s Bazar directly, but the camps have still been affected by high winds, heavy rain and flooding. And across Bangladesh, the choices have been stark: evacuate an estimated 2 million people in coastal areas into crowded shelters and risk spreading COVID-19, or continue strict physical distancing and risk more people dying in this enormous storm.

�� Media Action’s work on preparing for natural threats like cyclones in Bangladesh dates back to 2013. We work closely with government and other agencies, using media and communication to ensure our audiences understand what to do, where to go and how to seek help before, during and after a cyclone.

In coastal areas, people are well-versed in evacuation procedures thanks in part to trusted information carried on local media – it is information that has saved lives.

But because of COVID-19, our team has had to move quickly to redesign procedures and advice to reflect the additional threats posed by the virus, and then to ensure these are communicated to people clearly so that they understand and adapt accordingly.

An infographic demonstrates how to filter and boil water so it is safe for drinking. Credit: �� Media Action

In the aftermath of a cyclone, people need access to clean water – often requiring purification drops or tablets – as well as food, sanitation, emergency shelter and medical help. All of these procedures and practices now need to be adapted to the risk of COVID-19, so that we don’t advise people to do anything that might be harmful.

In Cox’s Bazar, with the first few cases of COVID-19 now confirmed, people are already worried. Our teams have been working hard to explain the concepts of isolation and quarantine – to show what’s inside an isolation centre, for instance, and to talk to doctors and health-care workers so that the idea of seeking medical help is less frightening. We continue to talk to the community to find out their concerns, and share these across other humanitarian agencies so they can respond and adapt to community needs.

At the same time, we’re providing information in local language about what emergency cyclone warnings mean, where and how to evacuate, and critical survival information – including water purification, hygiene practices, and avoiding waterborne diseases.

We’ve also supported health workers by producing easy to understand videos on hygiene practices in health settings and how to safely use PPE.

These are incredibly challenging times in which to work, especially when our staff are facing movement restrictions and their own challenges in keeping safe and healthy.

We’ve adapted the way we work and deliver our programming, delivering much of our support to the humanitarian sector in online sessions – covering solutions for how NGOs can continue to communicate and respond with the Rohingya population amid physical distancing restrictions.

Every second counts in a crisis. Experience and expertise in local contexts and cultures, and strong relationships with donors, NGOs, local governments and communities themselves, make all the difference in moving quickly to save lives with trusted information.

Richard Lace is the Country Director for �� Media Action Bangladesh.

�� Media Action has been working on COVID-19 response in Bangladesh, including Cox’s Bazar, with the support of H2H, funded through the Department for International Development.

Our work in Cox’s Bazar, where we work with Translators Without Borders and Ground Truth Solutions, is funded through EU Humanitarian Aid in partnership with Action Against Hunger; DFID through UNOPS, and UNHCR.

Audience research in the time of COVID-19

2020-04-17T15:43:14+00:00

Research team observing handwashing practices in Accham, Nepal in early 2019 to inform a recent WASH project

At �� Media Action, audiences are at the heart of everything we do. To understand our audiences and our impact, our work begins and ends with research – and this remains true even in a time of crisis.

As we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, research helps us to understand our audiences’ perceptions and concerns relating to the disease, as well as what information they need to make decisions and keep their families safe. This in turn enables our production teams to produce trusted, clear and actionable media and communication content that reaches people – including vulnerable communities – at scale, stands out in a sea of competing information (not all of which is true or helpful), and ultimately saves lives.

But how can research teams continue their vital work when they’re working at a distance from production colleagues, when the pace of production is so fast, and when face-to-face field work is out of the question?

Adapting our pre-testing methods

It can be difficult to keep pace with the need for rapid programme development when it comes to producing COVID-19 communications content. But it’s not good enough to say ‘we don’t have time to test’. You might get a piece of content on air or online more quickly – but the impact may be lost if the tone isn’t culturally appropriate, language about physical distancing too confusing, or your call to action is not clear enough for audiences.

So our message is simple: wherever possible, ‘pre-test, pre-test, pre-test’.

There are ways of gaining quick feedback under lockdown. Whilst working from home, our research team in Myanmar recently conducted some pre-testing of one of our new COVID-19 public service announcements (PSA) with their friends and families. They found that respondents could recall the key information points from the PSA – about washing your hands and covering your face when coughing – and felt it was particularly engaging because of the traditional music and lively delivery, making it unique from more serious PSAs they had seen on other media platforms. They recommended that the production team continue with this positive, encouraging tone to engage audiences.

A scene from one of our COVID-19 public service announcements in Myanmar

Inspired by this example, our research team in Indonesia are also testing content with friends and family via telephone and social media, as well as getting back in touch with a group of young people who recently took part in qualitative research about climate change. They’re setting up closed Facebook groups through which they can pre-test content, such as short new radio dramas tackling COVID-19 misinformation and rumours, to receive rapid feedback. It’s a similar story in Afghanistan, where we’re using social media to recruit volunteers for online focus group discussions. We’re currently exploring new ways to pre-test, such as contacting respondents and playing content via mobile.

Utilising local networks and contacts

With field work limited by local restrictions on movement, we’re relying on our wide-reaching networks and contacts nurtured over the years to help us access respondents and continue our vital research – to ensure programming reflects people’s changing needs.

For example, in Zambia, we’re working closely with our national network of community journalists – developed through years of work strengthening community radio in the country – to help us understand the needs and concerns of hard-to-reach audiences. We’re looking to set up simple, safe and physically distant mobile surveys for them to run in their communities to help us understand how perceptions of, and concerns about, the pandemic differ across rural and urban areas.

Similarly, in Bangladesh, where access to Cox’s Bazar refugee camp is now restricted, our researchers are making regular phone calls to our network of Rohingya volunteers to continue taking the pulse of the community. We’re sharing the insights gained – including persistent, widely circulating COVID-19 rumours and how to counter them – through our longstanding ‘What Matters?’ bulletin in partnership with Translators Without Borders.

And in Cambodia, where our researchers had been in the midst of a panel evaluation for our popular youth project Klahan9 (Brave 9), we’re pivoting the focus of our research to include perceptions on COVID-19. The team is also exploring how to draw upon our network of Klahan9 youth ambassadors to tell us more about how they and their communities are experiencing the pandemic.

The �� Media Action Data Portal - an open source portal containing a wealth of our existing audience research

Revisiting our existing data and building partnerships

To respect our audiences, it’s important that we use our existing insights relevant to COVID-19 and not conduct research for the sake of it.

Many of our teams around the world have been looking carefully at our wealth of existing audience research (much of which is open source and available on our website and Data Portal), re-analysing the data to draw out new insights around media access and usage among vulnerable audiences such as older people or people with disabilities. We’re also pulling out useful data from previous projects around health and hygiene – for instance, barriers to, and enablers of, good water, sanitation and hygiene practices in Nepal, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Externally, we are building relationships with organisations across key sectors (including market research, academic and humanitarian) which are producing surveys and collecting useful insights on COVID-19 – such as ACAPs, Innovations for Poverty Action, Kantar and the International Survey on Coronavirus, for information relevant to our projects.

Cross-country collaboration

Despite restrictions around freedom of movement, researchers at our London headquarters and across our network of country offices are working more closely than ever before – sharing expertise, exchanging COVID-19 research tips and tricks, and comparing cultural insights through regular calls and online forums. And we’re supporting our country offices virtually from London to better analyse their digital performance and monitor online chatter about the pandemic – using tools such as Crowdtangle’s COVID-19 tracking to help production teams fine-tune their outputs.

Encouragingly, there are early signs that our work is paying off. Some of the COVID-19 PSAs produced by our Myanmar team, for instance, are achieving record levels of online engagement. The Ministry of Health has even asked to make this PSA (watched nearly 3 million times and shared by 46,000+ people) official, for broadcast through national TV partners.

The situation is changing rapidly. But we will continue to innovate and review research methodologies to ensure we’re providing essential insights to production colleagues, and best serving our audiences.

The COVID-19 ‘info-demic’: A view from Bangladesh

2020-03-18T11:12:22+00:00

Rumours, mis- and dis-information about COVID-19 are spreading rapidly around the world and can be almost as harmful as the virus itself. Hear from our Senior Project Manager in Bangladesh, Kate Gunn, about the latest developments from our new global communications initiative tackling the COVID-19 ‘info-demic’.

Proper hand hygiene is key to the COVID-19 response

From working on �� Media Action’s response to the Rohingya refugee crisis for the past 18+ months, I’ve seen firsthand how media and communication have the power to save lives.

The same is true in a health crisis. Trusted, accurate and timely information can help communities prevent or reduce the spread of disease, and guide those affected towards services and treatment.

This trusted information is needed now more than ever as countries across the world – including here in Bangladesh – take action against the COVID-19 pandemic and work to save lives.

There is so much misinformation swirling – from how the virus is transmitted, to where it has come from, to false rumours about its prevention and treatment. All of these can endanger people’s lives. I’m leading �� Media Action’s new project, in partnership with Translators without Borders, Internews and Evidence Aid, to deliver clear, fact-based social media content to counter this ‘info-demic’.

There is a lot of content already being produced by a range of development, health and humanitarian organisations and by government departments to dispel misinformation, including the catchy Vietnamese song and animated video “Ghen Cô Vy” which has even sparked a viral TikTok dance challenge. There are many enthusiastic community-level producers too.

Still from the Vietnam Health Ministry's video "Ghen Co Vy"

But while much of this content is really good, some of it we describe as “yes, but…” efforts: mixed messages which might reinforce behaviours that risk transmission of the virus, for instance, showing people in crowds on the street, standing too close together or shaking hands.

So our challenge is not only creating content that applies to our country, our region and globally, but also working to help others do the same.

In Bangladesh, from where we’re managing the project, the situation is changing rapidly. Our main challenge is to keep our public service announcements, video clips and materials (some of which you can see here) up-to-date with official government and World Health Organization advice, and also to meet the fast-evolving concerns and needs of our audiences.

An example of the content we're producing in Bangladesh around hand hygiene and coughing/sneezing etiquette

In Cox’s Bazar, home to vast Rohingya refugee camps, and in other areas of the country where media don’t reach reliably, we usually rely on being able to share our content face-to-face with people – such as in community events and listener groups. We also know that community outreach activities strengthen what goes out on mass media, because we can discuss and interact directly with our audiences.

But, under current circumstances, there is likely to be less opportunity for that. Outreach staff will become more constrained in the level of contact they can have with communities as regulations on social distancing take hold. This is a huge challenge which also puts already vulnerable audiences at risk – imagine living in a rural community right now and facing the spread of COVID-19, with no access to any source of information about what it is or how to protect yourself.

To help address this, we’re already working to make sure that front-line staff in healthcare facilities also have access to our content and receive basic training in how to communicate it, so that communities are still getting access to that vital trusted information.

With the situation developing so quickly, it’s hard to predict what will change tomorrow – let alone next week. But with our team’s experience in humanitarian response communication, and collaboration across our �� Media Action country offices, we are doing all we can to provide audiences with trusted, accurate and engaging content that can save lives.

Kate Gunn is Senior Project Manager in our Bangladesh office.

Our COVID-19 response work is funded by the H2H Network with the support of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). For more information, click here.

And if you’re a media professional seeking advice on how best to report during public health emergencies, check out our recent blog with top tips here.

Our top 10 tips for media in the COVID-19 ‘info-demic’

2020-03-05T12:03:34+00:00

Reporting in a crisis often means covering death tolls, human suffering and instances of government failure. But just as important is providing accurate, trusted information that people need to cope and survive.

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues, the WHO’s Director-General has referred to an ‘info-demic’ accompanying the virus. Rumours and mis- and dis-information, including false cures and how the disease is spread, can be as harmful as the virus itself.

�� Media Action is working with partners – including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World Health Organization, Internews, Translators Without Borders and others - to counter these harmful rumours while helping to ensure reporting is for people affected, not just about them.

Students wash their hands before entering the Cinta Bangsa kindergarten as Indonesia reports two cases of COVID-19 on March 4, 2020 in Yogyakarta. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Here are our top tips for media reporting on disease outbreaks and public health emergencies to help make sure audiences are informed, connected to the services they need, and inspired to cope.

Be prepared. Build contacts with emergency responders, health organisations and experts ahead of time. Discuss what the public might need beyond breaking news.
Do your research. Learn the basics about prevention, transmission and treatment and consult with experts to ensure informed reporting.
Coordinate. In a public health emergency, media and health responders need to work together to provide timely, clear and consistent information.
Help your audience stay healthy. Provide accurate information about what is happening, and explain the emergency response measures underway, including how and when to access help, how to prevent the spread of disease and what to do if they or family members have symptoms.
Feature trusted voices, and counter mis- and dis-information. People only act on information and guidance if they trust it, and that is partly based on who the information comes from. Who will your audience trust? And are they reliable sources of information?
Ask the right people the right questions. Select people with the right knowledge, credibility and ability to express themselves on the subject. This might not always be an expert.
Motivate your audiences to cope. Showcase positive stories of coping and recovery and share experiences and learning from others affected. And think creatively: short public-service announcements, longer documentary-style segments, even catchy songs can reach people with life-saving information.
Interact with your audience. But remember to keep yourself and your audiences safe – during a disease outbreak, call-ins or on-line discussions may be safer than in-person interactions. And don’t forget about the voices of the most vulnerable people, who might be harder to reach.
Do no harm. It’s not enough to just make sure your information is accurate. Consider how your reporting might be interpreted and whether it might be feeding stigma or discrimination – for instance by appearing to link a particular group with the spread of a health problem. And be empathetic and sensitive. The needs of someone affected by a disease outbreak are always more important than the needs of the interviewer.
Think of the bigger picture. Disease outbreaks and health emergencies affect more than people’s health. Their livelihoods, education, daily routines, access to food and routine healthcare are all likely to be affected by the outbreak.

Above all, communicate well. This may seem obvious! But to ensure programmes are as accessible and helpful as possible, they need to be clear and accurate, realistic, engaging and solution-oriented. Trusted, consistent, practical programming saves lives.

To read more about reporting in public health emergencies, please use the �� Media Action’s guide here.

How can media help? Research from six humanitarian crises.

2019-08-19T08:30:24+00:00

To coincide with World Humanitarian Day, �� Media Action has launched a new humanitarian microsite, which uses data from six of its humanitarian evaluations to build evidence on how media can help people affected by crises. This blog originally appeared on Evidence Aid.

�� Media Action has been broadcasting ‘Lifeline’ programmes to support communities affected by humanitarian crises since 2001.

Research is central to how �� Media Action works. Understanding the needs and priorities of the audience is crucial for developing good media content, and rigorous research helps us understand programmes’ impact. This dedication to audience research, even in crisis situations, was one of the things that really struck me when I started working at �� Media Action four years ago.

In 2015, the organisation decided to pull together data from four humanitarian project evaluations, to understand what role media can play for audiences affected by crises across the world. This synthesis involved recoding qualitative data from these evaluations into a research framework, which applies the OECD-DAC criteria (which are widely used in humanitarian evaluations) to media interventions.

We have now expanded what started as a report into a microsite, with data and videos illustrating humanitarian programming from crises in Lebanon and Jordan, Gaza, West Africa, Nepal, Somalia and Bangladesh.

For me, the most interesting finding is the similarity in how people affected by different crises feel about Lifeline programmes. People appreciated hearing voices of people like them sharing their experiences and solutions. Many said that the programmes made them feel more hopeful and less isolated. The synthesis has helped us understand what is most important to people affected by crisis, namely accurate, practical information; empathetic presenters who speak the language of the listener and represent their situation fully; and having a platform to voice concerns and hold government and aid agencies to account.

It has also highlighted challenges: while mass media is good at reaching many people quickly on a wide range of topics, it struggles to provide hyper localised information, such as the status of health clinics or where to buy building materials. This is where partnerships between local media and humanitarian partners are so important, and much of the evidence speaks to the importance of strong partnerships. For example, audiences say they trust information when they hear the same thing from different sources.

Coordination between media and humanitarian partners on the ground is crucial to achieve consistency, and programme makers are reliant on humanitarian partners sharing up-to-date, reliable information on air. The benefits of building trust between humanitarian and media partners before a crisis are discussed in the ‘preparedness’ case studies on the microsite.

Partnerships are important in research too. Sharing research in crises helps us to build the evidence on what role communication initiatives can play. For example, in the Rohingya response, similar studies carried out by �� Media Action and our partners Internews and Translators without Borders at different time points, have shown a steady increase in the proportion of Rohingya refugees who feel they have enough information to make decisions for themselves and their families – providing evidence that our consortium project is doing something right.

�� Media Action uses a research framework to guide our evaluation of humanitarian projects. This allows us to systematically build the evidence base for the role of media in a crisis. We hope that humanitarian and media partners will use and build on this framework, so that we can continue to develop our understanding of what does and doesn’t work during these crises, and work together to build an evidence base that will improve decision making in the future.

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