Episode 3: Communication in Emergencies
Aziz Froutan has 15 years of extensive experience in media, public relations and strategic communications, especially regarding women’s and children’s rights. He initially worked as a journalist, correspondent and producer with various media outlets such as Radio France International and the BBC from 2003 to 2010. Later, he served as a Communication Specialist for UNICEF in Afghanistan, India, Cameroon and Burundi. He joins us from Toronto, Canada.
He speaks to us about:
ensuring consent
prioritizing protection
collaborating with others
the responsibility of amplifying the voices and stories of those he interviews - and much more.
Transcript
Intro: If tomorrow I publish a picture of this lady teaching children, she is teaching boys in a remote area, in a class room, what would be the impact or the negative impact of my story on this community, not only on the female teacher, but the community, the entire community, because some groups are not pro education for girls or a teacher, female teacher teaching boys.
Safa: Hello and Welcome to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I will be your host as we speak with and learn from development practitioners of all ages and affiliations around the world. We are interested in having conversations about how to rethink ethical issues related to working in the international development sector. In today’s episode we speak with Mr Aziz Froutan who has 15 plus years of extensive experience in media, public relations and strategic communications, especially regarding women’s and children’s rights. He initially worked as a journalist, correspondent and producer with various media outlets, including Radio France International and the BBC from 2003 to 2010. Later on, he served as a communication specialist and spoke person for UNICEF in Afghanistan, India, Cameroon, and Burundi. Furthermore, he has also conducted several media training sessions on ethical reporting on children and has many years of rich experience in both conflict and post conflict environments. Mr Froutan, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Aziz: Thank you for having me.
Safa: Could you please tell us perhaps how you made the transition from first working in journalism to later working in a communications section in the international development sector?
Aziz: First of all, when I was journalist, I, I was interviewing people from development agencies and always I wanted to be part of these agencies to bring some positive changes in the people’s lives. I was looking for an opportunity and in 2010 I could see this opportunity fit for me and I joined UNICEF to be UNICEF’s spokesperson in Afghanistan and Communication Officer to advocate for children and to talk on behalf of the organization.
Safa: Wonderful. And, as you began to work with UNICEF their in that position did you have, did you come across any ethical issues that maybe caused you to feel troubled or critical?
Aziz: Reporting on children and talking on behalf of children and to advocate for children means that you need to work with children and to meet — you need to be in touch with their parents and their communities and their environment. So there are lots of ethical issues in terms of working with women and children in some emergency areas or emergency situations. Especially in Afghanistan when I was reporting on children and when I was working as a Communication Officer with UNICEF. And in other areas also we have same issues. When you’re reporting on children, you need to be careful about their protection. They will say something that can be against them. For example, when I was working in Africa in Cameron, we wanted to report on a displaced child, displaced girl as she was far from her family. And when you are talking about a teenager, about a girl who doesn’t have a family, who is far from her family and she doesn’t know if her family is alive or dead. And she’s with the foster family, she’s protected by another family. If you are talking about this girl and you give her name or location and you are publishing her photo, it means you are putting the life of this girl at risk. This is a really important ethical issue and if you are not aware of this immediately for you, it’s your story. You want to talk about this and if your organization is supporting this girl, you want to highlight this and you want to say that in this area, this girl was receiving support and now she’s good, she’s feeling well. So this kind of human interest stories, you want to immediately talk about this, but when you’re working with the development agency, you need to think about the best interest of, of people receiving your support. And you need to sit back and think about the protection of the child, of this particular child. And then you need to report. So this is something different from journalistic work. So you are working the same job — you’re reporting on a child, but you’re not a journalist. You are working with the development agency. So here you need to be aware of all ethical issues, otherwise you will put the life of people in need at risk.
Safa: Absolutely. As you say, sometimes it’s a, it’s risking the person’s life. So it’s a very serious protection issue. But in your experience, have you and your colleagues and the agencies you’ve worked with, do you think they’ve, they do a good job at ensuring this protection?
Aziz: Despite all good things of development agencies, there are some challenges also. There are some issues and sometimes there are some problems with their interventions also. For example, sometimes agencies want to talk about their interventions, they want to highlight their intervention. And there is a competition in terms of fundraising. So if there is something happening, for example, a conflict in one part of the world. So agencies are rushing to the field, going to the area to support people in need. Sometimes they are not well educated about ethical issues and by reporting, by talking or by putting people in need in their stories, their name, they don’t think about the consequences of their stories, of the consequences of their intervention. And they are putting people at risk. And if their people are not well trained about ethical issues, instead of helping people, they are damaging people’s life. And we have this. When you interview a person who has lost his house and his house was ruined or destroyed by a group, obviously the person will talk about this group by naming the group and by talking about people who did this bad thing against him and against his family. He is emotional and if you record this and if you quote the person, and if you give the name of the person, the location — obviously in the future there will be bad consequences for this person, for this emotional person. So in terms of interventions, in terms of developing good programs, in terms of reporting and evaluation, everything — I can see good progress within development agencies, but sometimes they don’t have time to think about the best interest of people in need and I witness sometimes development organizations or agencies putting people in need at risk I witnessed sometimes development organization or development agencies putting people in need access.
Safa: As you say, sometimes there’s no time or there’s a lack of training. In your own experience, did you have supervisors or colleagues who participated in, in trainings or workshops related to these issues or is this something you had to deal with and teach yourself?
Aziz: During my career, I witnessed lots of changes. When I joined UNICEF, we had few online trainings or we had in person, sometimes in person workshops or trainings to receive information about ethical issues, about how to work with the marginalized people and people in need or people at risk. So we had few workshops and trainings. But now thanks to digital media or thanks to website development and all these online courses, we have lots of trainings online and the people or staff are encouraged to take these online courses. So now I can say that based on this progress, there are lots of training opportunities and staff can go online and be informed about all aspects of ethics, and how to work with the people in need. So there is this change that I witnessed. When I joined this development agency we were just looking for face to face trainings and it was not easy to have a good trainer in an emergency situation. If you are, for example, in Afghanistan, in Kabul, you cannot have a well trained person in terms of ethical issues to come to Kabul and to organize the training session. But now sitting in Baghdad or sitting in the Mogadishu, you can have connectivity and you can participate in online training, which is really good and I can say that this is a very important progress in terms of informing people about ethical issues.
Safa: As you say, online learning is a great avenue to be able to provide more trainings for colleagues. But you also mentioned the challenges of working in an emergency situation. Can you perhaps give us an example of a specific ethical problem that you encountered in an emergency situation and you had to decide what the best course of action was at that time?
Aziz: There are lots of examples when you are working in an emergency. Every moment you are facing something new and something extraordinary situation. So in emergency situations you have always this kind of experience. For example, when I was in the eastern part of Afghanistan taking a picture of a learning center in a remote area. I wanted to take a picture of the teacher, a female teacher. She was just teaching children which is really normally in other parts of the world. For few seconds I stopped taking pictures and I was just thinking about the protection of this lady, this female teacher. And then I was thinking about the protection of these children. If tomorrow I publish a picture of this lady with these children saying that she’s teaching children, she’s teaching boys in a remote area, in a classroom, what would be the impact or negative impact of my story be on this community? Not only on the female teacher but the community, the entire community. Because (at that time in that context ) some groups are not pro education for girls or a female teacher teaching boys. For a few seconds I just stopped and I was thinking about these issues. And then I, I started taking pictures and I talked to the female teacher and the other elders, the community leaders and after consulting with all individuals involved in this human interest story, then I published their story and I released some pictures. In another part of the country I went to a very remote area, I talked to a female teacher and I took some good pictures and everyone was happy with the, with the intervention, with the environment, with the program and everything was good. When I reached my office — one day later I received a call from the female teacher and she told me that, look, I have a family issue and if you release my picture that will be a catastrophe for me in my personal life. Now this is something ethical. So you, you spend your time, your energy and lots of preparation — I went to this remote area, which was not safe, so you can understand that one week or more than a week of resources of an organization was spent — my time, putting colleagues at risk to go to this remote area. And finally, you need to decide to say that, no, I have these pictures, I have this story and I have your consent. So I have your approval. Because every time when I’m clicking, when I’m thinking a picture, I’m talking to the person in the picture and I’m getting her or his consent. So I can say that I could say at that time that I have everything and I will publish this. But for a development agency, it’s really important that people receiving our services are happy and they are in a good situation — not just to highlight our intervention. I decided to delete all information, to delete all pictures and I told her that, look, we are here to support you and to support children around you. If you’re not happy, if there is any negative consequence for you, I will delete. And I did. I deleted all pictures. So this kind of moment in emergency situation, you need to think about the best interest of people receiving your support, not just your organization, your name and your product.
Safa: Wow. Yes. What a great example. Working in an emergency situation as you explain, it’s very delicate and consent can be something that is ongoing. So even though one day you receive consent, maybe the next day something happens, then you have to revoke that consent in the best interest of the, the communities that you’re trying to serve. So thank you for that example. But the other question I had is that sometimes the communications team, you have to collaborate with the programs side of the organization or the operations side of an organization or with other agencies that are working in the same community as you. In your experience, how have these collaborations been and are they, have they been effective or do they have their own challenges?
Aziz: To work with program colleagues and operation colleagues — always there are some challenges. For program people they, they think about details — about their interventions in details for them centimeters , meters, you know, kilograms, number of kits delivered are really important. But for people from communication perspective, for us the impact is really important. So always, you, you need to balance these two things. The impact or just the result or just, you know, what they did. When you are talking about a colleague from programs section, he or she will give you a list of materials delivered. But from a communication perspective, you need to see the impact of these materials on the life of people in need. So you don’t need to write just 200, for example, kits or winter kits have been distributed. You need to see that. How many children use these kits and how many women are using these kits? So this is important — and then what is the impact of these kits on their life? They are happy? How many deaths have been prevented? How many children are in a healthy situation right now? Always you need to communicate with them — and using different tactics to convince them that you need to talk about the result, you need to talk about the impact, not about the ongoing distributions or ongoing intervention that is just the continuation of the program. And when you are working with other agencies this also is a challenge because sometimes communication people working with these agencies are convinced by their program colleagues that they need to talk about the steps of implementing a project, not about the result of a project, not about the impact of the project. And then you have the different size of intervention. A big development agency is thinking about big impact and sustainable impact, but small non government organizations, maybe they think about one project and the impact of one project. Then your results and their results are different. You are in the same field. You’re talking about the same program, for you working with the UN agency, you think about system and sustainability, you think about resilience, you think about empowering people. But for another organization, just distributing 200 winter kits, it’s really important and they can see this as a result and they want to highlight this. So this is something very challenging. Since you are in the field, you’re looking for this result, but for them something else is important. And they are right, because their intervention is limited to this and your intervention is more open and you think about some strategic change in the life of people.
Safa: Yes. As you say, there’s a difference between impact and result and a difference between the number of something and the actual use. So in the situations where you had different perspectives from your colleagues, how would you resolve that? You would just have conversations and, and ask them to think about the situation in a different way?
Aziz: This is not an easy issue or easy subject. So in money situations we postponed the visit or we cancelled the trip. We try to understand each other by organizing, brainstorming sessions, briefing sessions and to think more about what we are expecting from our interventions to convince each other and to be on the right direction. Otherwise from the same project, which is a joint project, or from same emergency situation, we will have different stories, you will have different topics and this can damage the reputation of one or other organization. So it is really important to have some joint meeting and joint project development. For this result we had, always when I’m working in a, in a new area, new country, I invite people from communication section to join and to build a group of communication. So this is why we have always in different countries communication teams from different organizations. So it’s, you know, with the NGOs and with UN agencies under one group of communication to understand each other, to communicate to each other and to develop a work plan for one year. How to celebrate days and what are the teams for each day. Otherwise there is one day, for example, youth day, so one organization will have a message for this day, another organization will have another message that can be against this message or not in that same, in the same direction. So to avoid this kind of problems, always, I was trying to have a group of people working on the same issue from different agencies and from different organizations.
Safa: I see. That’s an excellent collaborative idea. One common criticism of the international development sector is that despite organizations saying that they use participatory methods and they consult with local communities, that in, in reality this is not done enough or it’s not done well. Could you tell us a bit about your experience with this?
Aziz: In some areas and in some emergency situations we can see this lack of coordination or lack of information sharing or limited information sharing which is impacting their interventions. I remember from one country refugees or displaced people were coming to another camp in another country. And we had a lack of cooperation between development agencies receiving refugees coming to their homeland or coming back from displacement. These refugees tired from being out of their countries. They were stopped five or six times in different places just to do the same thing. One organization was registering them at the border, the second one registering them, giving them some support and some, some kits in a different area. And then these refugees tired from the, their journey, were stopped in another camp in another area just to be registered and to receive some support. They were stopped in another area just to be again, registered and to receive some support. And sometimes they were receiving the same thing in different locations and different places. But finally after a week or two weeks, there was a task group and the task group, they noticed that they are just stopping people in different places and doing the same thing. They created one area to have all new refugees coming back from their country in one place to register them and then to give them support. So we had in one area, in one large camp, we had six or seven different areas and the area was controlled by one of these development agencies. So can you imagine — these refugees are coming after 30 years or 20 years of being separated from their families, coming back to their homeland and they are just estopped in six or seven areas to be registered and to receive some support. But after one week or two weeks, there was this one area for receiving these refugees and they were registered in the same area and they were receiving support in one area and then they were released to go to their, villages and to their cities. Yes, this is an issue. But development agencies are aware of this and maybe at the beginning of an emergency situation this can happen. But regularly the development agencies have task forces, have working groups, and they can correct this. But at the beginning, in most emergency situations, I noticed that there are some issues to be corrected.
Safa: Wow. What a great example. As you say in the beginning it always takes time perhaps to really confirm all the logistics and make sure that things are not being repeated. But you know, despite these challenges, do you believe that international development agencies really are able to contribute to the goal of creating a more equitable society, a more just and safe global society? Do you, have you witnessed this in your own experience that positive achievements are being made at the same time that there are challenges?
Aziz: I can see lots of progress and I witnessed lots of improvements. Now in all emergency situation the first thing is having a cluster, having a taskforce, having a joint group. So development agencies are working together to, to address these issues and problems. And now we have development goals and these Sustainable Development Goals developed by the United Nations are well respected by all countries, governments and development agencies. So now the direction or directions for each issue and how to solve a problem or problems are clear. Ten years ago we had the Millennium Development Goals or other goals and other objectives. But now with these new goals, I think the direction is more clear. Development agencies would like to fight poverty. There is a goal and there are tools to clarify the direction, how we can achieve things and how we can address this important issue. Or if development agencies want to empower women, there is a goal linked to this and they can go to this direction together with other development agencies to address this important issue — or gender equality or other issues that are linked to these goals. I think that there are lots of progress, but again, development agencies need to be more creative. Initiatives are really important. If a development agency is repeating the same programs that they implemented 20 years ago, I think it will not work today. They need to be more creative and they need to be more aware of changes in different areas. Afghanistan 2019 is not the Afghanistan which was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. There are lots of changes in these countries and we have a new generation coming up, aware of all challenges and information sharing is very fast these days. Development agencies are aware of this issue, but they need to be more aware of, or they need to consider this when they are programming or they are implementing projects in different areas and countries. Otherwise they will repeat the same things, which were good 10 years ago, but these programs are not good today. So they cannot copy and paste these old programs. So initiatives are really important and innovation is really critical and vital for implementing a new project or in terms of planning and implementing a project for people.
Safa: As you say, creativity and innovation. These are very important tools to use to create even better programs and services for communities in need. But you, yourself, you started as a journalist, you are in the communication sector. So you really have used the power of words and the power of stories and the power of images to tell, tell stories and communicate messages. Can you tell us a bit about why you are passionate about using communication in development and what you think is the power of that?
Aziz: This is a really, really important issue for me. I have visited different areas, different countries and I have met with different people who were receiving support from development agencies. And I could see how much this small change is important for their life. By educating a child you can change his or her future. And I could see this. So development agencies — when a government is not able to educate children and to have children in school — development agencies are doing this job. Or for example, nutrition or malnutrition is a really important issue for children. And in some areas, 50% of children are affected by malnutrition and development agencies are addressing this important issue. Some governments are not aware of this issue or this issue is not important for them or they don’t have enough capacity to address this issue. But development agencies, including UNICEF are trying to address this issue, which is very important. A healthy child can have a good future, but when you have a sick child, malnourished child who has no one to take care of him or her — this child cannot have a good future. And when we are talking about 50% of children in this situation, in this bad situation, in this horrible situation, you can imagine that in 20 years, in 30 years, 50% of the population of a country will have less developed brains and they cannot do their day to day jobs comparing to other healthy people. They will face lots of challenges when they are an adult. So this is really important. And when you’re talking about these issues, you are conveying messages from people in need who receive support to other people who are in the same situation or who cannot understand or who don’t have enough information about development agencies and your intervention. And the second issue is getting support and doing fundraising for development agencies to support people in need, which is really important because when you are working in the communication team, fundraising is part of your job. Sometimes it is a crucial part of your job — which is helping people in programs to deliver for people in need. If you can raise funds for them, they can develop programs and they can implement their programs. When they don’t have funds they cannot run any programs. So first being the voice of these people in remote area is something very important for me. And then doing fundraising for them is really important because when they talk to you they are 100% sure that you will talk on behalf of them — when you have this opportunity to talk to other people. I talked to lots of people who told me that look, we don’t need anything from you. Just talk about our situation, just tell people that we are in this horrible situation and we are in need, we need support. And when you have this responsibility you know that you need to convey this message. And by just conveying this message, you can help these people. This is something important. And in the end I’m proud of being the voice of these voiceless people and I can support them just by conveying their messages to the people who can help them in different ways.
Safa: Yes, absolutely. As you say, they trust you to deliver their message and it’s a very powerful and important task. But you mentioned fundraising and I wanted to ask you, how have you experienced the process of ensuring accountability when it comes to money or is that something you have experienced? Have you perhaps dealt with any cases of money that was not used properly or was not delivered to the correct place or any situations like that in your, in your career so far?
Aziz: I worked with the United Nations and we have a very correct system of using funds. So there is no issue with this, but maybe in some areas by mistake some development agencies, cannot use correctly funds received from taxpayers and from donors. But I worked with UNICEF and we have a very rigorous system of using funds and we have knowledgeable people in programming and they know how to develop programs and they know how to implement people to prevent any misuse of funds. But sometimes it’s not the misuse of funds, but, it’s just the correct way of, or the best way of using the funds. In some areas when we have floods for example, or we have some natural disasters, sometimes funds are used to feed people. This is, it’s not a misuse of funds. These organizations and agencies are not misusing these funds. But the goal or the way of using these funds is not the correct way — in my point of view. We need to bring some sustainable changes and resilience for people facing floods or natural disasters in one particular area. We need to bring positive changes in their lives to have this sustainability. So every year they don’t need food from you, they don’t need development agencies to come to their villages and to feed the them or to deliver supplies and to give them nutrition or some other things. So they need sustainability. And in my point of view, if funds are used to have this sustainable change, this is the correct way of using it. Most development agencies are aware of the importance of funds received from donors. And they know how to use this, but, they need to use their creativity and they need to use more innovations to correctly use these funds coming from donor agencies or from taxpayers.
Safa: Yes. As you say, sometimes it’s not about misuse, it’s just that there are different options or ways of using that money. Do you have a certain colleague or supervisor in your career so far that really influenced you or inspired you or taught you some things that have stayed with you over the years?
Aziz: There are lots of colleagues who’ve inspired me and really, I think I’m really privileged to have worked with them in some areas and always I’m thankful for them. I received lots of advice from them. But if I can talk about a few colleagues, we don’t have enough time to talk about all of them, but some supervisors, they, they give me good advise in terms of how to deal with partners, how to work with the community leaders and with children. So there are lots of people who help me to understand the situation. And some of them even lost their lives while trying to help children and help people in need. So I remember all of them and all of them have an important place in my, in my life and in my heart. There is one colleague who was killed in Somalia while trying to eradicate polio. When he was going to that country, he came to my office just to say goodbye and I told him that you are going to a dangerous place. He just laughed and he told me that every where we are facing challenges and it’s good to go to a so-called dangerous place to help people living there. And he went there and he lost his life there. His story gives me this lesson that lots of people working with development agencies are putting their life at risk to help people in need.
Safa: Oh, my condolences. Yes. As you say for, for many international development practitioners, they put their life at risk on a daily basis just because they really believe in the work that they are doing. Could you perhaps tell us about maybe some of the most difficult or hardest days that you’ve ever had at work? Of course it’s very challenging to, to be working in our emergency context, but maybe you can give us an example of a particular time that was very, very hard for you.
Aziz: When you are working in an emergency situation, always you are facing difficult times and when you lose a colleague — when a colleague is in trouble or when people around you are receiving threats, they are in difficulties- you cannot feel comfortable. But there is one thing that when you ask this question I was thinking about was. One thing that I remember and it touched me a lot was the date that three journalists who had just received an ethical reporting on children training on how to report ethically on children — they were just going back to their cities and there was an accident and they were killed unfortunately in this accident. And I remember the last session of the this training and they were talking about challenges in their cities and they were repeating that after finishing this training session, they will report on children in need and they will be the voice of these children. But unfortunately after the training session they lost their lives in this car accident when they were going back to their cities.
Safa: Oh, that’s so tragic. That so tragic. Definitely there are these difficult days but of course there are also very proud moment. So could you tell us perhaps of the proud, very proud moments that you’ve had in your career where you really felt very happy with the result of a project or the result of a training or any kind of work activity that went really well for you?
Aziz: There are lots of happy moments also when you’re working with development agencies, because you are in the front line, you are dealing with emergency situations. They are supporting people, they are in touch with them. One moment that I was really touched was when I was in a refugee camp — an area for displaced people and they wanted to have a school. So it was not a school — we had the tents and children were under tents and they were receiving education. So we went with some textbooks. So while distributing these textbooks I could see this enjoyment, happiness in the eyes of all of these displaced kids. And there was one girl and she was repeating that “I will not stop here. I will continue, now I have a teacher. “ And she, she was just repeating this and for me, even for one week I was thinking about this little kid who was very happy and very joyful to be under this tent with the teacher and with other children — around 40 children in one classroom. And they were really happy and they wanted just to continue their education. And they were repeating that this is the opportunity that we wanted to have and now we have this opportunity and we can continue our education. So this happy moment I think is a gift for me. And after writing a story about this student — for one week, I was thinking that I’m doing something good and I’m still doing good but at that time I was really proud of being part of this organization to help children in this situation.
Safa: That’s, that’s a beautiful example. As you say, it’s a, it’s a gift to be able to see a positive impact happen through the work of you and your team and your organization. Earlier you talked about the importance of creativity and innovation. Are there any examples of specific resources in the communications world that you think should be used more and more in the future?
Aziz: I think being aligned with new technology and with all the progress in the online system or digitalization of information is really important for development agencies. The example that I can talk about is U Reporting for example. In African countries we have this system of reporting and it gives an opportunity to young people to report and to talk about their concerns and their issues. So this is something, this is a very good initiative and a very good and powerful innovation to give this opportunity to them, to young people, to come out and to talk about their villages, their communities and whatever is important for them in their area and how we can address some, some problems and some issues. I think development agencies need to continue to be aligned with all digital changes and innovations in terms of having new technologies and using new technologies. This is really important. Otherwise with the new generation, especially with the young people, teenagers — if development agencies are not aware of all these changes they would be limited in terms of helping the new generation.
Safa: As you say, the digital world is a very, very valuable space where a lot of interesting work can be done. Mr Froutan, thank you so much for speaking with us today and sharing your knowledge and your rich experiences. It’s been very enlightening and thought provoking to hear your thoughts and your reflections, so thank you so much.
Aziz: Thank you for having me.
Safa: We wish you continued success in your work.
Aziz: Thank you.
Safa: Thank you also to our listeners, we really appreciate you tuning in. To keep up with our weekly podcast, please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcast platforms, rate and review our episodes, share it with your friends and follow us on Instagram where our handle is @rethinkingdevelopment. If you have any listener questions that you would like me to ask our future guests, please feel free to email them to us. I look forward to continuing similar conversations with you all in future weeks. Until then, take care.
