Download a PDF of this issue - Field Exchange - Emergency ...

News
infoasaid: communication in emergencies
When an emergency strikes, be it natural
disaster or man-made,
organisations working on the
ground, together with the national authorities,
rush to respond. Their actions are orientated
towards getting in supplies, arranging logistics,
and ensuring programmes such as Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Health,
Shelter and Nutrition can deliver on their
commitments. Two-way communication, i.e.
the sharing and receiving of information, with
disaster-affected communities should and can
be a cross-cutting part of humanitarian
response and in itself, a form of aid.
Communication is essential to successful
emergency programming in many ways. It can
alert the population about the disaster and raise
awareness on potential threats and thus mitigate
risk. If it is two-way, it can improve
programming by being more needs-based; if
done well and effectively, it can improve coverage
overall and at the same time, reach more
vulnerable people. It can support the coordination
effort by creating the space and the means
for organisations and communities to work and
talk together. It can also be an important and
effective tool in addressing the psycho-social
needs of a population who have experienced a
disaster first hand.
infoasaid is a 2 year, DFID-funded project that
is being implemented by two media development
organisations - Internews and the BBC
World Service Trust. The overall goal of the
Infoasaid
Infoasaid
project is to improve the quality of humanitarian
responses by maximising the amount of
accurate and timely information available to
both humanitarian agencies and affected populations
through enhanced information
exchange between them in the critical first few
days and weeks of an emergency.
The project has two main objectives:
• To strengthen the capacity and preparedness
of aid agencies to respond to the information
and communication needs of crisis affected
populations.
• To partner with a number of aid agencies to
help inform and support their communications
response in a variety of emergency
contexts.
In order to achieve objective one, infoasaid is
developing a range of tools that will be available
to the entire humanitarian community.
These include:
• Media and Telecoms Landscape Guides for
22 of the world's most disaster and conflictprone
countries. These guides provide a
comprehensive picture of the media and
telecommunications landscape, information
on media consumption patterns and a useful
contact directory of media and telecoms operators.
The guides are a practical tool for aid
agencies to refer to when deciding which
channels of communication to use in order
to access different populations.
• A library of generic messages and accompanying
guide. This has been developed in
collaboration with a number of different
clusters/sectors in humanitarian response,
including WASH, Health, Nutrition, Food
Security Protection and Education. The
messages aim to provide information to
affected populations about the scale and
nature of the emergency, risks and threats
and how to mitigate them and information
about programme interventions. The
accompanying guide explains the importance
of context, culture, and delivery methods in
each emergency situation. The messages are
designed to be used as a reference tool and
ideally, should be translated, piloted and
adapted to suit the local context and to
ensure comprehension before an emergency
has occurred. The message library will soon
be available for use in the form of a web
based tool.
• Generic questions on information needs and
access which need to be adapted and then
integrated in agencies’ needs assessment
frameworks.
• An interactive e-learning course to raise
awareness of, and provide basic skills on,
communicating with disaster affected
communities. The two hour module takes
the learner through a number of different
emergency scenarios.
In order to achieve objective two, infoasaid is
partnering with a number of aid agencies to
help inform and support the integration of
communications into their emergency
programmes. Partnerships have been signed
Infoasaid
with Save the Children, Merlin, World Vision,
ActionAid and the International Federation of
the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC). infoasaid is currently piloting an intervention
with Action Aid in Kenya around food
security, using two new open source software
platforms – Frontline sms and Freedom Fone.
Scoping missions are also taking place in north
east Kenya and Puntland with Save the
Children to see how integrating communication
interventions can improve their emergency
response.
infoasaid also provides additional support in
the following areas:
• Context analysis (analysis of the media land
scape)
• Undertaking information needs and access
assessments
• Development of communications plans and
strategies
• Development and dissemination of key
messages to affected populations
• Linking aid agencies with media development
organisations, the tech-community
and the local media
• Piloting new technology innovations
• Design and roll out of small scale pilot
projects
• Undertaking learning reviews post-response,
in order to learn lessons and document
good practice
infoasaid informs its advocacy efforts through its
field based experiences and the learning
gleaned through the reviews undertaken post
response. infoasaid hopes to consolidate its
learning in the form of a Humanitarian Practice
Network (HPN) Paper that it will develop and
launch in collaboration with the Overseas
Development Institute (ODI) in mid-2012.
infoasaid is also providing technical and financial
support to the ‘Communicating with
Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC)
Network’ with the view to strengthen the
Network and enable it to take forward the work
that infoasaid is currently doing.
For more information on infoasaid visit:
www.infoasaid.org or contact Anita Shah, Head
of Project, email: anita.shah@infoasaid.org
49