Proactive strategies and provision of information
Proactive strategies to mitigate the harmful impact of information risks remains the best long-term and sustainable strategy for protecting forcibly displaced and stateless people and the humanitarian organisations that work for them.
Key to addressing information risks and promoting freedom of expression is the promotion of transparency and the provision of bona fide information. Information is a form of assistance in itself and access to accurate information allows people to make informed decisions for their safety and protection, to shape and adapt to their environment, and to hold humanitarian actors accountable. Information risks can quickly confuse and overwhelm people in situations where access to accurate and timely information can be a matter of life or death.
Key Points
- Diverse groups in the community should be engaged, as partners, in a dialogue between UNHCR and forcibly displaced and stateless communities.
- Forcibly displaced and stateless communities must have safe, regular access to timely, accurate and contextually relevant information, and are able to make informed decisions on the basis of the information available to them.
- Forcibly displaced and stateless communities must be made aware of the means by which they can meaningfully participate and give feedback.
- Forcibly displaced and stateless communities must have a say in the channels of communication and the types of information they need and how they receive it.
- Organisations must consider the different information needs and levels of access within the community
RESOURCE
AAP Operational Guidance, Communication and Transparency
The communication and transparency portion of UNHCR's AAP Operational Guidance provides a number of resources for designing a communication plan, a communication and transparency tip sheet, and several practical tools for meeting the needs of forcibly displaced and stateless people.
RESOURCE
UNHCR's Help websites provide localised, accessible, timely and reliable information on services and assistance in the country where displaced and stateless people are in accessible languages. They play a crucial role in helping UNHCR operations expand the reach of trustworthy information in the online environment. They are particularly instrumental when informed by community feedback and linked to monitoring avenues of harmful narratives circulating within the community's preferred and trusted channels.