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To deliver an effective responsive information service, it is paramount to repeatedly assess the communication ecosystem in your context, barriers, needs, key stakeholders, and risks.
Understanding these factors is important not only to ensure you know who in a community you can reach and how to effectively reach them, but also to avoid doing harm. (29) While it is important to conduct needs assessments and map the information ecosystem in the design phase, this process needs to be repeated frequently to determine whether you are still meeting the needs of the community. Information needs and uses are never static and especially in a humanitarian context, can change rapidly, so it’s important to continually assess, analyze and adapt.
In preparedness and emergency phases, it is helpful to frequently assess the following factors:
- The community profile and context: Communication and community engagement requires a sound understanding of the community: its languages, culture, economic conditions, social networks, political and power structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts by outside groups. (30)
- The dynamics of access to information: Attention should be paid to whether particular groups (such as women, children, disabled or older people, minority language speakers) face specific challenges in accessing or providing information. See Module 1.3 for more information on barriers.
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The communication landscape: Areas which have lost coverage, power, how people are currently accessing information, and key stakeholders that might influence your work or that you might work with to strengthen it. A good understanding of the media and telecommunications environment is important if you are considering working with a partner to facilitate two-way communication,
particularly in conflict situations. - The channels people prefer and have access to communicate with you through: There is a range of different ways (‘channels’) by which people prefer to communicate and access information, from radio, newspaper or television, to word-of- mouth, participatory theatre, leaflets or town hall meetings with community leaders. Preferences vary depending on factors such as mother tongue, literacy level, age, ethnic group, social or economic vulnerability, disability, gender or religion, and can change over time, particularly when usual channels are disrupted.
- Information needs: Information needs and communication preferences vary over time. After an earthquake, people might want information on tracing missing relatives, how to access aid, whether they can enter damaged houses and what to do with bodies recovered. But later, they might want information on replacing lost documentation, compensation rights, and legal issues.