The WFP is the lead agency of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC). Through the ETC2020 Strategy, ETC aims to add value in the area of Communications with Communities (CwC) by extending its infrastructural and technical work to include engagement with and information provision to communities.

Internews has been at the forefront of CwC strategies in the humanitarian aid sector, believing that aid efforts are more transparent, accountable, and ultimately effective when two-way communication exists between aid recipients and providers.

Information Ecosystem Assessments, an Internews-developed tool to map and understand communication flows and information availability within a community or affected population, will be foregrounded as a tool in humanitarian response through the partnership.

“We know that information saves lives,” says Anahi Ayala Iacucci, Senior Humanitarian Director at Internews. “Effective communication and feedback reduces suffering and enables people in the midst of a disaster to take an active role in their own survival and recovery.”

The partnership builds on a 2017 collaboration between Internews and the WFP to provide support to community radio stations in Haiti. Four radio stations were rehabilitated in February and March of 2017. In addition to returning the stations to functionality, Internews produced a handbook and worked with key NGOs and government intuitions to understand how to reach and communicate with audiences through the stations. The largest of the stations, Radio Louvri je, had an estimated reach of 400,000.

The WFP is an autonomous joint subsidiary program of the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that provides food assistance for the hungry poor all around the globe and works to achieve its vision through its relief operations in over 80 countries around the world.