Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is the BBC World Service Trust’s new Pan-Nigerian, DFID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

After the feedback we received from the research and internal reviews of our two original TV pilots, I began training Devaan and Nasiru in the techniques and styles of documentary TV production.

Documentary TV is not necessarily news, but real-life stories told through people who are not actors: character-driven, real life narratives. It is not only the direction where our templates were headed, but what audiences globally have been leaning towards.

I explained to them the two necessities of this style of production: interesting stories and engaging characters. I then asked them both to choose a topic they were deeply invested in and to find a story and character with whom they would shoot an interview with.

Nasiru chose to focus on the housing market and the financial real estate crisis in Abuja. Here, real estate prices have hiked up so much that very few people can pay their rents. Ironically one of the victims of the housing market is Devaan, who bought her house several years ago but is suffering from loans and mortgage increases.

Nasiru knew Devaan’s story very well, but this was his first time shooting a documentary. He immediately wanted to shoot it at his house as opposed to Devaan’s because his house is closer and more in his comfort zone. I explained to him the importance of trying to get as close to the reality of the situation and location as possible. So they drove a distance to shoot the testimonial in Devaan’s house.

Watching Devaan tell her story as she washed dishes and gave a tour of her house was compelling, especially when she herself, a slick presenter, almost fell silent for a loss of words. You can’t script moments like that.

For her documentary, Devaan looked at sickle cell disorder – something she’s quite familiar with, as she herself suffers from it and for years has been an avid proponent of sickle cell research and education. She knew instinctively what she wanted to focus on and immediately decided to call up one of her fellow advocates, Eric Edoja, a man who is crippled with the disease and is now in the hospital without proper funds for care.

She shot his testimonial in the park, where he struggled to walk to a tree and finally to sit down. He began talking about how he lost two of his brothers to the disease and his role in advocacy.  But it was his face and voice which made for a moving interview. Nasiru suggested we use the video as a way for him to raise money for his hospital care.

I was moved with how compelling their exercises looked and am excited to see how they will produce the next two editions of the TV show.

At one point Nasiru told me, “Now I get it. For all these weeks we’ve been learning about all these techniques. But now I see how we can really use them.”

Enhancing Nigeria’s Response to HIV and Aids (ENR) is the BBC World Service Trust’s new Pan-Nigerian, DFID-funded project which will focus on lowering the prevalence of HIV in the country.

An aspect of this is to help capacity building at national and state TV stations. This involves creating a TV training team which will then go out and provide training at local stations, including training on HIV reporting and co-producing with the station for several weeks.

Ambika Samarthya, an international trainer based in Abuja reports on the first stages of the three year project.

* * *

One of the great things about working for an organisation like the Trust is that we believe in preparation. For our training at the stations we need to have a few pilot or template programmes to show to the stations.

These pilots go through a long process before they can be finalised and used as training tools. The aim of making the pilots is for local stations to consider using them in developing their programming on HIV and Aids. It was really important to get them right.

But preparation can only do so much – and I’m finding that in a country like Nigeria, no amount of preparation can ever translate into a guarantee!

For instance, last Wednesday I prepared to export these pilot TV shows onto DVD but when I came into the office there was a problem with the electricity supply and I had to go back home and work from there.

Eventually, with the help of Devaan and Nasiru (who I trained at the start of the project and are now in my TV training team) the work got done. And then we – the trainers, trainees and a few members of the WST staff – all gathered at the office to watch the shows and give feedback in an ‘internal review.’

First, we watched Keeping Up, a talk show (with a host and guests) specifically dedicated to HIV issues. The unique thing about this show is that all the edits were done predominantly in camera. This means we created a show with a low level of editing which would be used in stations that don’t have editing facilities and resources.

The feedback was useful: the template and purpose was clear, but it dragged on and felt slow. As a TV producer, I know it’s very difficult to create a fast paced show without editing. And in this we confront the main question: how can we prepare the stations to create engaging programmes that don’t depend on pace (i.e. editing)?

As an example, Deji Arosho, our head of production, suggested a change of guests would perhaps keep it more lively and create more debate.

Next up we watched Swagger, a multi-format show that includes a testimonial, an edited discussion, and a ‘musical dramatisation’. Everywhere in the world, people are accustomed to watch programmes based on what they are ‘prepared’ to see – what is in their TV watching habits. Almost all Nigerian TV shows have a presenter and Devaan and Nasiru were both sceptical on how we could create a programme like Swagger without a host.

When we screened it, the question came up of how the segments were connected. My response was that they were three separate segments connected by a theme.

People nodded quietly and said “we should wait to see how the audiences respond” (audience research is the next stage and will help assess how well the formats and contents work).

The musical dramatisation (i.e. short film without dialogue set to music) was perceived as “confusing” since it wasn’t a music video or a short drama but something in between.

Overall, there were two specific changes that resulted from this feedback review. Firstly, to create another episode which would involve marginalised and lower income groups (our target audience), and secondly, to include real people instead of actors.

Devaan and Nasiru listened to these suggestions in silence. I could read their minds!

When we made Swagger, we prepared ourselves with weeks of camera rehearsals, shot lists, production breakdowns, scripts, actor rehearsals, and had to re-shoot several scenes many times. In spite of all this preparation we still ran into problems: limited lighting options, actors’ limitations, fuel scarcity, uncharged batteries, and power shortages.

Now, adding a documentary component, not to mention in a non-urban or affluent setting, would mean even more levels of preparation – and with it, risks and unpredictability. It would be up to myself, Devaan and Nasiru to oversee all of this.

But these challenges are crucial to our jobs and all the work of the Trust – to push the boundaries of media with no guarantee. And we will prepare ourselves to do just that.

A daily reading of the blogosphere this week has provided a feast of new year predictions, wish lists and tips for 2009 that reveal some really interesting online and tech innovations that could have a great impact on the non-profit and development arenas in the year ahead.

The big story of course has been the ongoing conflict in Gaza; but this too has seen quick-thinking people adapt new technologies for communication and data-building to track the conflict and help build information for use by humanitarian relief agencies.

Mainstream news channel Al Jazeera English are utilising a platform first developed during the post-election violence in Kenya in early 2008 to track events in Gaza. Ushahidi – meaning “testimony” in Swahili – uses “crowd-sourced” information to map crisis situations. It allows anyone to submit information via sms, email, or through the web (Al Jazeera is utilising a Twitter feed). OpenStreetMap (OSM) –aimed at creating a free, editable map of the world – diverted their energies to a special Gaza project early in the week. They are looking for people familiar with street names and landmarks to enhance the limited existing map. Reuters Alertnet has a list of other mapping initiatives.

Elsewhere, the BBC reported on a growing E-library project providing ICT literacy and awareness to schoolchildren in Nepal, allowing pupils to “conquer their fear of computers”. The initiative uses the open-source Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP), which allows many people to simultaneously use the same central computer on a Linux operating system and hopes to reach children in all 75 provinces of the country.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) started the year by announcing big staff cuts and a “refocused mission” (via Ethan Zuckerman) that nevertheless prompted a healthy discussion on where this initiative should move next.

A pre-Christmas story in Wired, “The cellphone that could change the world” on how mobile phone telephony could be used in disease detection points to what could be a big theme of 2009 – health and web technology – picked up on in ReadWriteWeb’s new year predictions.

But perhaps the clearest call to action is Antony Mayfield’s (via socialreporter):

“Here’s a New Year’s Resolution for you that might do some real good: teach someone at work or in your family how to use social media tools. Actually New Year’s Resolution is too weak a way to frame this. It’s a call to arms. A plea to your humanity.

Feeling revolutionary itch but not sure how to start scratching with a mortgage/student debts/rent to pay? This is how.

Why? Because our future’s at stake…”

By Lisa Robinson

Rioting in Athens in early December prompted non-stop coverage from multiple television channels in the country. Greek audiences were obviously hungry to know where and why the rioting was happening, how extensive the damage was, and how long it might continue. In Athens at the time, I watched BBC and CNN for the english headlines, but eagerly flicked between at least three Greek TV stations with ongoing footage of the previous nights’ events.

During the week of the riots, Athens was hosting the Global Forum for Media Development where, my colleagues Imogen Wall of the BBC World Service Trust and Mark Frohardt of Internews were, coincidently, raising discussion about the crucial role of information for people affected by disasters (pdf).

As previously reported on this blog, too often humanitarian responses fail to meet the demand for information from affected populations. Local media and information infrastructures in developing countries are often weak to begin with, inhibiting the kind of widespread coverage taken for granted in Athens.

The conference discussions raised a number of comments from attendees focusing on the role of local media, in some ways oddly disconnected from events outside the conference centre on the streets of the city.

The director of Panos London emphasised the need for a code of conduct and questioned how ‘information’ might be defined, especially in politically sensitive areas.

Others reiterated the delicate balance between providing information to affected populations and politics. They questioned the role of the state in providing life-saving information, especially in contexts where governments retain a firm grip on media outlets.

Gavin Rees from the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma emphasised the wellbeing of reporters, who are often reporting under severe stress and shock. He urged organisations to take this into consideration when planning responses.

At a panel discussion at the Overseas Development Institute in London a few weeks earlier  the focus was on how information and communication could be mainstreamed within the humanitarian sector, while this session offered useful follow on discussion specifically about the role of local media.

Audiences in Athens that week expected to see the riots in the media and to publically discuss the moving events. Why wouldn’t audiences facing tragedies anywhere else in the world expect – and deserve – to receive the same?

For more on information in emergency response, please see the BBC World Service Trust policy briefing (pdf).

The face or voice of a foreign correspondent reporting on a natural disaster from a far-flung destination whilst scenes of destruction and human suffering play in the background is an all-too familiar image for many of us on tuning in to the latest news. The 2004 tsunami, 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and this year’s Sichuan earthquake in China and cyclone Nargis that devastated Burma are only the latest humanitarian emergencies that have prompted powerful news reports, and emergency response appeals  

But this depressingly familiar image also captures what Mark Harvey of Internews describes as “a double information jeopardy”. At the very moment at which international media are reporting an unfolding crisis to their audiences at home, the people who have most critical need of reliable information – the affected population – are caught in an “information vacuum”.

James Darcy of ODI introduces the panel

Harvey was speaking yesterday at a packed meeting hosted at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London, and launching the latest BBC World Service Trust policy briefing “Left in the dark: the unmet need for information in humanitarian responses” (pdf) co-authored by Imogen Wall and Lisa Robinson. The panel discussion and question session focussed on the need for a “paradigm shift” from a stress on “our” information needs towards the information needs of crisis-affected populations. As chair James Darcy of ODI put it, “people are agents, and they need information in order to make informed choices.”

All of which sounds incredibly like common sense yet as Imogen Wall noted, a collective failure of humanitarian agencies to address the information needs of affected populations is a common feature of recent evaluations of international crisis response.

The phrase Wall and Robinson were at pains to emphasise “communications with affected populations” is intended to stress the two-way (or multi-dimensional) nature of communications, and reflects the fact that communications should not be limited to just “media” (traditional or emerging). A need to think creatively and “bottom up” about communications – at all levels and through consultation with local people – was identified as key to developing a clear strategy around the issue.

Two case studies – from Pakistan and Burma – highlighted the difficulties in actually delivering this sort of targeted response in countries where specific political, religious, and social sensitivities (and often a closed or state-controlled media) make reporting and broadcasting extremely tough.

Mark Harvey reported on his organisation’s work in Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake, in which an existing training project based in Peshawar was adapted to respond to the unfolding emergency. Although they succeeded in reaching 3 million people through securing 8 emergency radio licences and eventually distributing 10,000 radio sets, they experienced big problems with procurement, funding, and local government.

Imogen Wall, co-author of the policy briefing "Left in the dark"

Ko Ko Aung a producer with BBC Burmese, and co-presenter of the BBCWST’s Burma Lifeline programme “Healthy Today, Stronger Tomorrow” set up in the wake of cyclone Nargis acknowledged the problems associated with operating in closed states such as Burma, but insisted that this was vital information that saves lives. The entirely humanitarian focus of the programme meant that the team were able to reach the 2.5 million people in the devastated Delta region who needed it, he added.

A population’s “need to feel heard as much as to gain information” was an important lesson learned from Pakistan said Harvey, along with a need for proper funding, infrastructure, research and preparation to enable rapid response. Lisa Robinson suggested adding a question on the state of communications infrastructure to the established rapid needs assessment (on hospitals, food and water security etc) as a simple and cost-effective way to mainstream communications strategy. Research and media/communications evaluations conducted in specific vulnerable nations and regions– such as Bangladesh – would again allow for rapid response in the event of an emergency.

Which is not to say any of this is new: the 2005 ICRC world disasters report focussed on information in disasters as its key theme, and many at the meeting had examples of working to get the issue recognised. Barriers to progress included difficulties in building trust between local and international aid agencies, local media and local populations, a lack of common understanding of the importance of communications within the humanitarian industry itself, and of effective coordination on the ground.

Yet there was a feeling of real enthusiasm for developing a common strategy from those gathered. Suggested next steps included the formation of an equivalent Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) for information implementers, and the setting up of a fund to allow for rapid response specifically on communications. It was even suggested that with a rapidly evolving media and communications landscape and a new generation of tech-savvy socially networked individuals, the case for instant access to information could be very compelling in attracting support.

For more on information in disaster response, see our Burma lifeline and Darfur lifeline projects, visit the Internews website, and keep checking Reuters AlertNet for their new emergency news agency initiative.

At the BBC World Service Trust London office today we welcomed an excellent external speaker, on a subject of particular interest for me (and indeed this new blog). Nathalie McDermott from social enterprise start-up On Road Media spoke to staff in London about flexible, cost-effective solutions for facilitating communication between and across marginalised groups and hard-to-reach communities.

Nathalie gave numerous examples of how free software and “web 2.0” technology has enabled marginalised groups to engage and report on their own communities and culture. Free networking sites such as Ning and Facebook and content-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr run alongside blog platforms (this blog is hosted on wordpress) that empower the kind of “citizen journalism” and individual reporting and commentary that traditional news gatekeepers have struggled to handle. She spoke of the unique opportunity of these tools to give people their own voice, generate powerful broadcast output, and reinforce and support community cohesion.

Two of Nathalie’s projects include a private social network for young gypsies and travellers Savvy Chavvy, and a knowledge-sharing network between UK and Ugandan mental health professionals, Heartsounds. She also has experience training journalists in Sudan, introducing them to free software solutions such as the open source audio editing package Audacity.

The reference to her work in Africa prompted discussion of an issue that was on many people’s minds; namely the limited and often poor quality access to the internet in many parts of the developing world, especially for rural and marginalised communities. Nathalie responded that in fact blogs and social networks many actually be the optimum online solution for communication and media delivery in developing countries as they are “lighter” than image-heavy and very large traditional news sites. She also noted the use of tools such as RSS (really simple syndication) in developing countries, meaning that users can sign up to a “feed” from their favourite websites and blogs, without the need to load up heavy homepages and search through large sites for relevant material.

The discussion opened up an exciting range of possibilities in relation to the current work of the BBC World Service Trust, in an area that is only set to grow as commercial organisations seek to engage “emerging markets” and economies – something that is already being seen in mobile telephony growth in developing countries.

A different kind of site – and a particularly good example of the use of web 2.0 for civic empowerment – is that of the mySociety model of civic engagement websites, which promote good governance and accountability among elected representatives. TheyWorkForYou and FixMyStreet are two good UK examples. There are exciting opportunities for adapting this kind of model as part of governance and accountability projects run by the BBCWST around the world, combined with support for better social affairs and political reporting.

These are issues that we are just beginning to think about at the BBC World Service Trust, but that we should continue to talk about and develop ideas on, to exploit the best of advances in internet technology and communication practices to promote development and reduce poverty.

A deliberately provocative headline in Wired magazine this week “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, make blogs look so 2004” heralded an article arguing that the “golden age” of blogging – where ‘amateur wordsmiths’ could ‘pour their hearts out’ in cyberspace and be rewarded with high Google rankings is over. A new generation of micro-blogging tools like twitter, and alternative formats such as YouTube and Flickr have replaced the more traditional long-form text weblog, itself overtaken by blog magazines such as the Huffington Post said Paul Boutin. This being the internet, the article was quickly picked up on – and blogged – by amateur and professional hacks alike, which resulted in a surreal exchange on the BBC’s Today programme on Radio 4 this morning as presenter John Humphreys struggled with social media linguistics and asked his guests how many real friends they had.

This seems a neat reflection of the evolving nature of information exchange and flow that new technologies and online applications have made possible in the last few years. For many of us around the world daily exchanges on social media networks such as Facebook, plus access to news through TV, radio, online, print newspapers and on mobile phones is an unconscious act. We are used to consuming information in a variety of formats – often complaining that there is too much of it.

However tomorrow (24th October) on World Development Information Day (also UN day), it is worth remembering that in a media-rich world, many of the planet’s poorest still lack access to potentially life-saving information.

In a new policy briefing from the BBC World Service Trust “Left in the dark: the unmet need for information in humanitarian response” (PDF, 750MB), Imogen Wall and Lisa Robinson argue that millions of people, already suffering or at risk through manmade crisis or natural disaster, are having their problems compounded because they are denied access to basic information that could help them save or rebuild their lives.

In the aftermath of disaster – such as the 2004 tsunami, 2005 Pakistan earthquake and 2008’s Burma cyclone and Sichuan earthquake – access to vital information about what has happened, whether it is safe to travel, where the nearest hospital is, where to go to for food and medical supplies etc is hugely important and often lacking. The report calls for aid and development agencies to build-in communication plans to emergency and humanitarian response strategies. Innovation and use of new technologies are just as important in these difficult contexts to maximise the reach of information and access remote or cut-off communities.

The comment responses to the Wired piece were nearly all in disagreement with the article’s claim, loudly attesting to the health of the blogosphere. It is a young format that is here to stay it seems – another publishing platform which those who find useful will heartily defend. It is natural for us to defend access to information – today, we should also remember to advocate it for those “Left in the dark”.

Download the full report here (PDF, 750KB) and read the full story on the BBCWST site here.

Head of Policy Development at the BBC World Service Trust James Deane has an interesting post over on the Communications Initiative blog asking if a free and plural media should be considered more important than a transparent election process in securing democratic development.

His post springs from a recent attendance at the Salzburg Global Seminar on strengthening independent media, and in particular an argument put forth by Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion that the media is an essential part of the system of checks and balances on executive government power:

“Collier provided … the most succinct case I have yet heard on why media is essential to economic development. He argues that information is an essential public good and that the media’s role in providing information and acting as a check on executive power qualifies it for public financial support …

“Media and the development efforts that support them are not more important than elections in securing democratic development. But, based on some of the best economic thinking of our time, media development is vastly more important than their current status within the development system currently suggests.”

Visit the Communications Initiative to read the rest of this post, and click here for more on the Salzburg Global Seminar series.