SERVICES: National Platforms
Bangladesh Cox’s Bazar
Context: The common service for community engagement and accountability (CSCEA) was first developed by BBC Media Action, Internews and Translators without Borders. It integrates community engagement into the humanitarian programme cycle across the Cox’s Bazar response and ensures that community feedback, the provision of information, and participation are continuous and effectively implemented and coordinated. Through research, training, collective analysis of feedback and the production of IPC materials, the service works to ensure the community has access to the information they want and need in the right language and works to assist humanitarians to communicate effectively and respectfully with the Rohingya refugee community. The design was informed by lessons learned from emergencies including Yemen, Nepal, Iraq, South Sudan, the Caribbean and the Philippines.
To complement the thematic work of the common platform actors, CDAC member Ground Truth Solutions (GTS) has been conducting regular systematic large-scale surveys across both Rohingya refugees and host communities. These cross-sectoral survey tools look at how, overall, humanitarian programmes are responding to community needs and are directly linked to the objectives of the Joint Response Plan (JRP) and commitments set out in the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS). By ensuring a representative survey sample, GTS can provide all humanitarian agencies on the ground with robust data to inform their programming. The data is also used as the basis for perceptual indicators to measure progress against the strategic objectives of the JRP. GTS plans to continue to work closely with the CSCEA.
Government Ministry or Dept links: The service is independent of government, but coordinates closely with the government-led national CwC platform (Shongjog) and the relevant local government actors in the affected area, including the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission.
Leads/Chairs/Co-Chairs: The service supports the activities of the Cox’s Bazar CWC Working Group (hosted by IOM) and leads affiliated groups: UNICEF and WHO chair the RCCE subgroup and BBCMA and American Red Cross co-chairs the Cyclone Preparedness group.
National and international actors involved: BBC Media Action, Translators without Borders form the CwC Common Service. Previously Internews were members until March 2019 and Ground Truth Solutions were until April 2020. More than 80 other partners are using common tools and services, and/or sharing feedback data for collective analysis; and over 12,000 individuals have accessed common communication tools provided by the service.
Donors: Major donors are ECHO, (with funds flowing through UNOPS). GTS has conducted three survey rounds since July 2018 with funding from SDC and DFID.
Opportunities and challenges: Significant progress has been made in terms of the provision of information to affected people. Refugees feel substantially more informed than they did at the beginning of the crisis and say that it has become easier to get information - . While this represents a significant success, some concerning information gaps remain, including in how information is reaching particular audiences as well as gaps related to specific, more complex topics. Similarly, the importance of seeking and acting on feedback has been recognised and agencies are beginning to mainstream accountability mechanisms throughout their work. But the response has not yet achieved the level of systematised accountability desired. There are significant gaps. This is particularly true for women, who are less able to access feedback mechanisms, and for community leaders, who sit at a crucial nexus of information provision, engagement and representation but who are currently detached from the more formal engagement and feedback systems within the institutional response. Both of these challenges require the continuation and evolution of the specialist, technical support provided by the common service to sectors, agencies and informal functions working across the response. The service has recently transitioned to new funding, with an adaptive and more focused design that will fill particular demographic and geographical gaps as well as iterating tools and approaches for the needs of the longer term, protracted crisis.
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