The 2017 humanitarian assistance report from the United Nations – Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations – Report of the Secretary-General – cites Internews Humanitarian Information Service launched during the response to Hurricane Matthew in Haiti.
The report provides an overview of current efforts to improve humanitarian coordination and response and describes major humanitarian trends, challenges and thematic issues.
Internews’ Humanitarian Information Service in Haiti, which ran from October 2016 to February 2017, aimed to improve the quality of timely and actionable information exchanges with Haitian communities affected by Hurricane Matthew. Internews’ two-way communication model relied on gathering feedback from affected populations in order to directly address the issues that concern them the most, and to help humanitarian partners integrate their concerns into their programming and interventions. On-the-ground teams conducted data gathering and rumor tracking for feedback-based publications targeted to the affected population and for a humanitarian audience.
The report noted that, “The United Nations and its partners should continue promoting approaches on accountability and community engagement in which communities receive timely and coherent information and have access to complaint and feedback mechanisms, and decision makers act on feedback to improve targeting so that needs and rights are upheld.”