DFID White Paper: a welcome step forward for development

By Caroline Nursey, Executive Director

Here at the BBC World Service Trust, we welcome DFID’s new White Paper, Eliminating World Poverty, Building our Common Future.

There is a clear evidence and research base demonstrating that media in developing countries can constitute among the most effective checks on corruption and abuse of power, and it is gratifying to see this reflected in the White Paper. The commitment to set aside an amount equivalent to 5% of budget support funds to help ‘ensure that citizens groups, local media… and others are able to monitor how governments use these resources’ is a critical and necessary step if in-country accountability mechanisms are to be successful. A fresh approach to accountability lay at the heart of the Accra Agenda for Action aimed at enhancing aid effectiveness, and agreed almost a year ago. It is refreshing to see the principles outlined there transformed here into clear and practical commitments.

 

Ringing in change

It is my second day at the train halt point in Patna. A number of BBC Hindi Radio listeners have assembled at a modest venue in central Patna to speak to programme makers.

Here, I am surrounded by a group of about 10 Bihari men. Should I do it? Should I take out my mobile phone and press the button that starts my ringtone?  I want to make the most of my visit to Bihar and get feedback from people we are trying to reach with our work. I decide to give it a go. I want to know what these men think when they hear my ringtone.

 

Beyond the ice cream

The BBC Election Train pulled into Patna station in the early hours of the hottest day of the season. It was 42.8 degrees Celsius. Despite the heat, I was looking forward to meeting some of our project partners and understanding what more can be done in Bihar, one of the poorest states in the country. 

According to India’s National Family Health Survey, 42% of children nationally are underweight.  However, in Bihar it is even higher at 58%. Fewer than 20% of births are delivered in a health facility in Bihar (again, considerably worse than the national average). There is a lot of scope for mass media campaigns that can inform mothers about the best feeding and birthing practices and challenge socially accepted practices which mean women and girls have poorer access to  food, health services and education.

Former Chief Minister of Bihar Laloo Prasad Yadav passing out ice cream to BBC journalists at his home in Patna

I met up with former Chief Minister of Bihar and current national railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav at his home in Patna. Considering the poor maternal and child health indicators in his state, I asked him what he believed to be the greatest need in this area and how did it could be met. He responded by saying that when he headed the state government, he concentrated on immunization, sanitation and education. His view was that local government bodies should have the power to prepare their own budgets and the funds to implement their programmes directly.

During this election time, he was keen to leave a good impression on the visiting BBC journalists. He arranged to have an ice cream cart enter his compound, and personally served each of us a cup of ice cream. His welcome was a clear signal of his aim to woo us at a time when his political popularity in the state is not what it was.

 

Training NGOs and a serenade on a train: are you prepared?

Local band Bhoomi ("Earth") join the BBC election train

What can a band of musicians do to help people prepare for natural disasters?

Well, if you are West Bengal’s hit band Bhoomi, you use your popularity to encourage people to take simple steps that could save lives and limit the damage from floods and cyclones.

In February this year, Bhoomi helped the BBC World Service Trust raise awareness about disaster preparedness through a high-profile public concert. The 3000 seat stadium in Kolkata was packed – many in the audience lived in communities vulnerable to disaster. The concert blended live music with vital information about how to reduce the risks and impact of disasters, such as ill health, exploitation and loss of property and livelihoods. The band wrote a signature tune on disaster preparedness for the concert. With the help of Bhoomi’s music and a host of Bengali celebrities, the audience was reminded that they should have an emergency plan in place, ensure that they store chlorine tablets in case water is spoiled by the monsoon rains and keep important documents in a safe, waterproof place.

 

All aboard the Indian election train

Yvonne MacPherson

My journalist colleagues at the BBC are being swept up in election fever here in India. To get closer to listeners and viewers, the BBC’s seven-coach Election Train is travelling 7500km in 18 days, stopping in eight cities along the way. BBC journalists from around the world are on board reporting on the general election and how it affects India and the rest of the world. I’ve joined my colleagues to meet some of the people we have reached through our work. For the next four days, I will be writing about my experiences in this series of blogs.

 

World Malaria Day

We mark World Malaria Day with a look at how our research team have adopted a new theory as part of the BBC World Service Trust’s work in Cambodia to combat the disease.

by Lizz Frost Yocum and Vipul Khosla

Marking World Malaria Day, we had the pleasure of presenting our Malaria Communications Model and welcoming Dr Kate Distin to talk with the BBC World Service Trust about cultural evolution theory. We drew heavily on this theory to help us better understand malaria in the lives of Cambodian audiences, and to bring this understanding to the making of the Trust’s malaria outputs.

 

Event: when information saves lives

Shirazuddin Siddiqi and Lisa Robinson

by Simon Derry

 

At the United Nations headquarters in New York last week one of the debating chambers reverberated with a discussion on how media organisations could best support humanitarian actions. The BBC World Service Trust co-hosted this event with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the media development organisation Internews, the International Federation of the Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

An audience of over 150 interested parties representing media NGOs, development NGOs, UN agencies and the private sector enjoyed a lively discussion about the need for engaging local media to help affected populations at a session chaired by Catherine Bragg, Assistant Secretary General of OCHA.

 

12 March: World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Today marks the second annual World Day Against Cyber Censorship. Launched last year by Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, RWB today released an updated list of States with repressive online policies together with a report (pdf) detailing current filtering practices of so-called “internet enemies” Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Steven Murdoch, a researcher in the security group of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and member of the “The Onion Router” (Tor) project – an anonymising service that improves online privacy and security – happened to be visiting the BBC World Service Trust offices today so I talked to him for a few minutes about the principles behind Tor, how it is used, and the importance of tackling web censorship.

 

Mobile phones: ringing the changes?

A UN agency report from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released Monday reveals an explosion in mobile phone use globally, much of which has been driven by growth in the developing world. According to the report, subscriptions now stand at 4.1bn worldwide (around 61% penetration) up from 1bn in 2002. By the end of 2007, 64% of subscriptions were from developing countries, and Africa continues to have the highest mobile growth.

That is not to say the digital divide is likely to be bridged anytime soon; the report adds that internet penetration remains low in the developing world – and especially in Africa, where less than 5% of the population are online. Yet it has to be encouraging for communications and media specialists operating in the context of developing countries, and offers the opportunity for creative thinking around how to use such a rapidly expanding platform for development.

One such organisation using mobiles to great effect, FrontlineSMS (allowing NGOs to conduct two-way communication on a large scale), this week also announced a major new development in their services; FrontlineForms, which aims to “give grassroots NGOs the opportunity to try out mobile data collection with the minimum of fuss the minimum need for high-level technical expertise or equipment, and the minimum of funding.”

SMS, as has been documented in the BBC World Service Trust’s latest policy briefing on information in emergency response, has also been successfully used in humanitarian and emergency response situations. As Megan Rowling reports for AlertNet, “Often SMS carries on working when voice and data traffic is jammed, and it tends to be one of the cheapest methods of communication.”

 

Event: high-level meeting on information in emergency response

Continuing our work on the vital need for information in emergency response, the BBC World Service Trust will co-host a high-level panel discussion at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) later this month.

Moderated by John Holmes, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, participants will discuss the information needs of affected populations following humanitarian and natural disasters. Panellists including Sir Nicholas Young, Chief executive of the British Red Cross, will share examples of where these needs have been successfully addressed.

Best practices of national government preparedness and response, as well as how broadcast media have been used to provide emergency ‘lifeline’ information will also be presented.

As has previously been reported on this blog by Lisa Robinson, co-author of the BBC World Service Trust report “Left in the dark: the unmet need for information in emergency response” (pdf), humanitarian agencies often fail to address the “information vacuum” of affected populations – to everybody’s cost.