Lifeline Programming: Communication with Crisis-affected People

The BBC Media Action, as the international development charity of the media network the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), has available to it a network of international partners and an international infrastructure that can "reach hundreds of millions of people in countries where mass media can be used to connect and inform". In some cases, BBC Media Action supports local media to produce and broadcast their own Lifeline programming. In other cases, it produces Lifeline programming in-house or in collaboration with one of the BBC’s 27 language services. The aim is to have locally informed, "intimate" relationships with communities and aid responders, including governments, international organisations including the United Nations, bilaterals, and non-governmental organisations.

In collaboration with aid responders and local media, Lifeline sends information rapidly and on a mass scale. "Information shared by radio, television, or mobile can empower people to help themselves." To assist relief efforts, the programme can:

• "tell people what services are available, how and where to access them and what to do to stay safe and healthy and
• manage the expectations of the affected population.
• And by providing a platform for people to voice their concerns, it can help aid agencies to detect gaps in the response that need to be addressed."

Possible formats include: "public service announcements and short bulletins to magazine programmes and phone-ins for radio or TV. It may include elements of light entertainment as well as factual information. If the crisis is prolonged, a radio or TV drama series may be produced to discuss issues in a fictional setting. Text messages, voice messages, the internet and social media are also useful tools for reaching affected people and giving them a voice." For example, in the Pakistani flooding of 2010, local and national radio aired Lifeline programming in both Pashto and Urdu to between 60 and 80 million people and received over 800 calls in the first 5 hours of broadcasting.

Aid providers can help shape the contents of messages by providing "information on challenges affecting the population and expert advice on what people should do to address them." They can spread the word about programme availability and run listening groups, as well as obtain recordings to be played to communities with limited access to broadcast media. Putting the two-way nature of the communication programme into action, Lifeline can provide aid workers with feedback from audiences about their concerns and about gaps in relief efforts - both geographic and material aid gaps - and success stories.

Those working on communication and those providing aid can study local social structures in order to involve leaders in decisionmaking on messaging. Because special groups may need a voice, for example, women who do not have recourse in leadership structures, attention to certain groups is also necessary in these consultations.

Lifeline can also help media organisations:

• train local and national media organisations using expertise and resources;
• provide their audiences with information in a "clear, interesting, and user-friendly way";
• facilitate collaboration with aid providers; and
• help recover capacity to broadcast and reconnect with audiences.

Because a radio broadcasting unit can be flown into a disaster-affected area, even if local media infrastructure has been destroyed, broadcasting can take over the local frequency and reach people. Mobile phones are another available means of communication for text messages and call-in responses. Low literacy is a factor in reaching people, which television and radio combined with call-in capacity can overcome. Call-in responses are reported to "give people a sense of dignity" and investment in decisionmaking based upon their local comment on needs being heard.

Risk Management, Conflict, Development Assistance

"Lifeline programming has helped communities affected by some of the world's most severe recent natural disasters, from the 2010 Haiti earthquake and floods in Pakistan, to Cyclone Nargis in Bangladesh in 2008."