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Addressing Communication Needs of Disaster Affected Communities – Typhoon Haiyan Response
Presentation by
Tanja Venisnik
Human Rights and Accountability Advisor
Philippines Communitere
Communications with Communities – An Emerging Theme in
Humanitarian Responses
• Communication is aid
• Enabling disaster survivors to access aid and to make informed decisions affecting their lives
• Enabling humanitarian actors to better design their programs
• Two-way process
• Mainstreaming CwC across the humanitarian programme cycle
• Accountability
• Transparency
• Human rights
• More than a philosophy
• 70 % no access to telecommunications
• 90% no access to electricity (almost no access to print, TV or the internet)
• 50% no access to radio broadcasting
• Local legends illustrating the importance of communications (radyo baktas – “walking radio”)
Carrying Out CwC Work
• First Response Radio (Tacloban)
• Radyo Bakdaw (Guiuan)
• Restoration of mobile phone networks
• CwC Working Group - serious gaps in communications identified
• Manny Pacquiao’s fight – a missed opportunity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrdAjea4Ks
• Importance of using multiple communication channels:
- radio- print- hotlines- suggestion boxes- texts- public screenings- information desks
Dissemination of information to communities
• Radio as main source of information
• Radio as most trusted source of information Radyo Abante:
• Humanitarian messaging
• Question of the Day
• Hosting experts
• SMS
Public Screenings
• Targeted communities• Opportunity for information gathering• Partnerships with the media
Face-to-Face Communications
• Surveys suggest face-to-face communication remains important
• Extremely valued• Reaching excluded communities
Enabling and impeding factors to carrying out CwC work(non exhaustive!)
Enabling:
• national and local capacity• active government collaboration • capacity of telecoms• some local and international staff experienced in CwC• dedicated CwC WG• language
Impeding:
• no baseline study• funding• location of meetings, especially in the beginning• lack of clear dissemination of information on UN cluster
system and UN agencies’ mandates• staff turnover• difficulties with gathering, collating, analysing and
channelling-up community perspectives
Communications from Communities
• “The ultimate goal, a continuous and systematic loop of drawing real time feedback from communities, analysing it, acting upon it, and communicating those actions back to the community is still some way off.”
CwC Update No. 9 of December 19, 2013
“There is a need to put in place a system for the international response as a whole to capture community feedback and input that should feed into humanitarian decision-making and which highlights the differentiated impact on the lives and livelihoods of the people affected, by sex and age … There is at this stage no coordinated community participation in planning and monitoring processes.”
Emergency Director’s Group – AAP Plan of Activities - Haiyan Response, Philippines
Why is this important?
• Right to full, free and impartial information
• Right to freedom of expression
• Right to participation in public life
• Human rights underpin all humanitarian work
• Strengthening CwC by human rights framing
• Rights are non-negotiable
• Shifting the debate and reinforcing the frame
.
Other Challenges and Concerns
• CwC and AAP collaboration
• Local media antagonistic to the government
• Understanding of humanitarian landscape by the local media
• Funding grassroots projects
Ways Forward
• Baseline studies are paramount
• Systematic and continuous information gathering, collating and channelling-up data to decision-makers
• Allocation of specific resources for CwC – budget lines, dedicated CwC teams
• Staff capacity building and learning
• Traditional information-sharing
• Local initiatives - grassroots organisations
Benefits: - flexibility- stronger engagement with communities and local NGOs- “fresh eyes”
Impediments: - lack of capacity (staff and funding) - reputation building
Click icon to add picture• Predictability of CwC WG
• Human rights framing to attract donors who fund human rights based projects
• Encourage donors to integrate human rights monitoring into assistance and evaluation cycles
• Forming partnerships with private businesses