About to land

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Good morning global community!

New to the Internews family, I am really excited about being part of a team that is piloting a groundbreaking project in Central African Republic (CAR): working with local radio stations and local reporters; leveraging the power of mobile phones and interactive mapping to bring closer local communities and humanitarian organizations, excellent!

My name is Raimondo Chiari and I am the first Humanitarian and Media Liaison Officer of Internews in CAR introducing “Integrating Local Media and Information and Communications Technology (ICTs) into Humanitarian Response,” a cutting-edge project supported by the Humanitarian Innovation Fund.

The project (I am sure we’ll come up with an acronym soon, no worries!) will foster an innovative system that we hope will enable humanitarian actors to improve the quality and timeliness of their operational responses. We are eager to make this happen by creating opportunities for local communities in CAR to become resilient and active players through a renewed effort to set up a two-way communication flow with humanitarians by leveraging the power of local media, mobile and new technologies.

I have previously worked in various conflict-affected countries including Sudan (Darfur) with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and in Colombia with the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In both of these contexts I have been exposed to the complexity of multi-dimensional crisis with dynamic security, logistical and communication conundrums.

CAR also faces a similar series of complex humanitarian challenges, including regular natural disasters, armed conflict, corruption and poor or non-existent connectivity and infrastructure in many parts of the country (read our previous blog about CAR). The country moreover seems to have also fallen far too low in the list of priorities for the international community.

Hardly visible in the international media, CAR is mainly spoken about in relation to other emergencies in the region such as Chad, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo - or when the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) yet again, sparks international media coverage. CAR, as many other countries around the world, hardly makes it into the international news and very seldom on its own.

Working with local reporters and the larger humanitarian community we are going to try to tell a different story, one that stands out on its own. One about talented and committed people in CAR, a country that always ranks high on indexes about failed states and hopelessness, who want and can, with some adequate support, make a different by being innovative, leveraging local media while introducing some low-cost and low-tech solutions.

New cross-sector paradigms are moving stealthily into the humanitarian world. The need to communicate with crisis-affected communities together with the role that local media, (mobile) technology and new innovative ways of thinking/working can play, is one of those new paradigms. Old solutions to same old problems have proved to fall short when addressing new XXI century challenges and realities.

About to land in the capital, Bangui, and ready to hit the ground running.

Stay tuned, far more to come!

Raimondo Chiari - Humanitarian and Media Liaison Officer, Internews

@RaimondoChiari