Integrating Local Media and ICTs into Humanitarian Response in Central African Republic

Context and Issue: 

CAR presents the humanitarian community with a range of complex and protracted emergencies where access to and the sharing of information with affected communities is essential. On a day-to-day basis, refugees and IDPs need to understand the support and assistance available to them, and to be able to hold the actors responsible for their safety and well being to account. With the passage of time, refugees also need channels by which to understand the emerging situations in their home countries. Meanwhile in an area as volatile as south-eastern CAR, the humanitarian sector can struggle to access accurate information on the current scale and patterns of LRA attacks; this in turn can hamper their response and access to preventative information for the community.

Project's activities: 
  • Refined assessment of the ICT landscape will explore the availability of technologies, the existence of potential local Volunteer Technical Communities and the possibility of partnering with local Internet and mobile phone providers.
  • Launch and update of the Ushahidi platform that will aggregates the gathered information and will be managed from Internews’ office in Bangui where information/reports will be reviewed, processed and made available to OCHA and all the humanitarians. 
  • Training for journalists, radio stations and humanitarians around the applications to be utilised and the risks associated with crowdsourcing, the use of the two software platforms and the management and use of the SMS and web based system. 
  • Assessment of Initial community information needs led by the trained journalists among the communities they broadcast to, in collaboration with humanitarian organisations. 
  • Opening of the system to crowd-sourcing allowing affected communities to collect crowd-sourced data on specific issues by using SMS, that will inform radio stations' reporting on the ground and feed humanitarians information for hard to reach areas.
  • Ongoing Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
Participants and Beneficiaries: 

This innovation seeks to respond to the humanitarian communication needs of refugees, internally displaced communities and the local population (beneficiaries) at the centre of the protracted emergencies:

  • Sudanese refugees in the city of Bambari, Central CAR
  • IDPs and Congolese refuges in the city of Obo, South East CAR
  • The host population living in the two affected areas of Bambari and Obo

The target groups are two partner radio stations and broader humanitarian response actors so integral to the design of this innovation. Internews will integrate this proposed intervention with the existing network of 15-community radio stations in CAR, with which it already works.

Outcomes: 
  • Create a sustainable emergency preparedness and response mechanism that will connect local media, humanitarians and affected populations through a tangible and sustainable two-way communication channel in the context of a protracted and complex emergency
  • Improve relationships between affected communities and humanitarians by creating opportunities for communities to become an active part of an innovative, coherent, user-friendly, high-impact communication system.
  • Equip humanitarian actors with a meaningful data stream that allows them to improve the quality and timeliness of operational response.
Internews Europe’s proposal is a “unique and innovative project, which has significant potential to improve humanitarian action.”
The HIF selection team
“Very often, humanitarian responses are undermined because people’s information needs are not met and relief agencies don’t communicate enough with them. This project is a step towards getting this vital component right, so we are delighted to have this opportunity to further experiment with, capture and share innovative approaches.”
Jacobo Quintanilla, Humanitarian Media Director, Internews