Five years ago, the Grand Bargain’s Participation Revolution vowed to reform the humanitarian sector to better listen to people affected by crises. Today, lots is still ongoing to make humanitarian organizations more accountable to the people they aim to serve and respond to their feedback. The outgoing Emergency Relief Coordinator’s new proposal for an Independent Commission for Voices in Crises is the latest of several such initiatives. Across the sector, listening to people’s voices and including them in humanitarian decision making are acknowledged as essential. With a proliferation of tools like hotlines and other accountability-focused activities, never before have people had so many opportunities for making their voices heard. Yet too often, these opportunities don’t materialize and humanitarians remain heavily in control of making decisions, independent of people’s needs and priorities. 

There are systemic weaknesses in our sector’s approach to accountability, rendering whole groups voiceless within the system, simply because their voices are in another language. As the humanitarian sector deliberates on a future Grand Bargain, we must base all accountability efforts on lessons about listening to crisis-affected people in their languages.

Listening is essential but not always the reality

Many aid organizations do not have the tools needed to really listen to affected people, especially in linguistically diverse contexts. The 2020 Humanitarian Accountability Report shows that organizations are far from meeting Core Humanitarian Standard commitments on communication, participation, feedback, and complaints. Attention to language minorities has also been low, with little consideration for how language, often coupled with other factors such as gender and displacement, leads to exclusion from humanitarian assistance and protection. Right now, the onus for listening to affected people is mostly placed on a small group of people whose job titles include the words “accountability” or “community engagement.” Their efforts provide the building blocks of accountability, but they cannot systematically ensure implementation of language-aware programs.  Nor can they ensure that entire organizations change their ways sufficiently to make the system more accountable.

This has serious, unintended consequences

In Burkina Faso, communities that speak multiple languages remain unable to engage with responders because translation and interpretation are not prioritized. 

In South Sudan, women in particular report language as a barrier to accessing information on vouchers and services they can use to obtain food and other essentials. 

In DRC’s Equateur Province, a lack of language support leaves women unable to access reporting mechanisms and make complaints due to the fear of not being listened to. 

In northeast Nigeria, people who don’t speak Hausa or Kanuri sometimes have to rely on a neighbor or relative (sometimes a child) to act as an informal interpreter and relay their needs to enumerators. 

In Afghanistan, community radio stations struggle to access information about COVID-19 in plain language and in the languages their staff and audiences speak. 

Across the board, language barriers are a symptom of wider issues of culture and power. These examples demonstrate how people who don’t understand or speak the languages used by humanitarians in a given context are disadvantaged and exposed to greater risks. They also point to the unfair, unrealistic reliance on national responders to carry the burden of multilingual communication untrained and unsupported.   

Practical changes are needed to make language a routine consideration in listening to affected people

Listening to people’s voices depends on understanding – and to understand, we need to consider language. Without language, listening becomes irrelevant. You can’t communicate your priorities to a hotline operator who doesn’t speak your language. There is no point in having a feedback box if you cannot write. People affected by crises must be able to communicate in their own language to feel heard, seen, and recognized for who they are and the rights and needs they have. To achieve the Grand Bargain’s Participation Revolution and put affected people’s voices at the center of humanitarian action, humanitarians need to change their standard approach to language. Learning from evidence and practice to date, we need to: 

• Assess what languages people speak and understand. If we stick to the official or dominant language in a crisis-affected area, we won’t reach large sections of the population, including non-literate women, older people, and people with disabilities, many of them vulnerable in other ways. And unless we can track the outcomes of our programs against the languages of individuals, we can’t say that we are leaving no one behind. With language data, we can have an evidence base for effective two-way communication. For example, when REACH collected language data in the 2019 multi-sector needs assessment, for the first time responders in northeast Nigeria could adapt their communication to the needs of different groups.  
• Pool resources. Without appropriate resourcing, we default to communicating only in official or dominant languages. And we address language barriers one piece of content at a time; often a task taken on by local colleagues with little or no support. This is resource-intensive, creates delays in information relay, and increases the chances of information getting lost in translation. Overcoming this means budgeting for and mobilizing professional linguists wherever possible. Training and support programs can build capacity in languages where support is unavailable or unaffordable. The Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability project in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, exemplifies this. Evidence shows that the proportion of Rohingya refugees saying they have the information they need jumped from 23% to 92%. Through training on language and accountability, operational organizations also reported being able to better communicate with Rohingya refugees and respond to their needs.  
• Use available language technology. As the COVID-19 response has highlighted, people respond best to information that they feel they can trust and that answers their actual concerns. Some new tools have been introduced to help with providing people with better targeted information, including chatbots. But these are mostly focused on information dissemination, through rather standardized menu-based options. As such, we are missing critical engagement opportunities and not taking advantage of available technology. That is why TWB is working with IFRC, Mercy Corps, and others to pilot more interactive chatbots, allowing for natural language input, currently in French and Congolese Swahili in DRC and English, Hausa, and Kanuri in northeast Nigeria. In time, this can help build the automated translation technology that will enable crisis-affected people to have the conversations and access the information that they want. 

We’ve learned these lessons in our own evolution as an organization. We know that paying more attention to language alone isn’t the way to systematically listen to and act on the voices of those most in need. But done right, it would provide the sector a better means to value, and act on, the input, views, and agency of crisis-affected people, in the languages they know best.

Written by Mia Marzotto, Senior Advocacy Officer at TWB / CLEAR Global. 

Ebola continues to threaten communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In order to be prepared for future outbreaks, responders need to learn from previous responses and adapt their community engagement approaches to local circumstances. They need to do this with an understanding of specific language and communication needs in affected communities. For any future response to be most effective, this needs to happen early. 

Responding to the 2020 Ebola outbreak in Equateur

During health crises, it is especially important to get communication right. This means carefully considering the preferred languages, channels, and formats of information in communication with communities. Ebola is endemic in the region and it is unlikely to disappear any time soon. Unfortunately, both communicators and responders in DRC have a lot of experience with Ebola outbreaks. After the 2018-2020 Ebola response in North Kivu, responders acknowledged the importance of considering communication and language in preparedness planning for future responses. Unfortunately, the 2020 response to the Ebola outbreak in Equateur highlighted that there are still lessons to be learned about centering language and communication in crisis responses.

Context in Equateur

Equateur was the location of the 9th Ebola outbreak in DRC in 2018. After the 2018-2020 10th Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, Equateur was once again affected by Ebola in the 11th outbreak in 2020. The threat of Ebola is not new to communities in Equateur. Unlike the location of the previous Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC, Equateur is not the location of any active armed conflict. However, the province faces its own humanitarian challenges, including critical malnutrition, flooding, and difficulty of access to remote areas. Like most of DRC, Equateur is incredibly linguistically diverse. An important dynamic to consider in Equateur when communicating with communities is access to information, services, and rights for indigenous communities. 

Quality information on languages spoken by people experiencing health crises

To fully support communities and health workers, it is important to take language into account when planning activities. Our research and work with our NGO partners found that many of the recommendations for responders in eastern DRC apply also to the response in Equateur. TWB’s research and language team conducted a study in Bikoro and Mbandaka on language and communication barriers for the Ebola response. The team conducted focus group discussions and individual interviews with health communicators, members of the community, and humanitarians. Our research focused especially on access to information for different groups, including indigenous communities, women, youth, and older members of the community. To inform and reinforce our qualitative research, TWB works with partners to collect quantitative language data to map languages spoken locally. This up-to-date language data collected with communities and partners helps TWB to deliver evidence-based language support. For Equateur, TWB has mapped spoken languages in Equateur and neighboring provinces by health zone to support responders.

Local languages matter

In DRC, responders are learning to go beyond French in risk communication and community engagement, and are starting to consider national languages such as Lingala in regional responses. With more than 200 languages spoken in DRC however it is important to look at more local languages such as Mongo or Ngombe in Equateur. 

Similar to French and Swahili in North Kivu, our research found that most health communication resources in Equateur, including posters and tools for community workers, are provided in French or sometimes Lingala. Communities and health workers need to be equipped with information in other local languages. One research participant in the village of Iyembe Munene told us, “We receive the information in Lingala, but the best way for us to receive the information is in Ntomba (a local language), because if it passes in Ntomba there is understanding of the messages.” Even Lingala, one of the four national languages of DRC, has its variants. The Lingala spoken in Equateur is known as Lingala facile which borrows words from local languages as well as French. 

Indigenous communities in the Lake Tumba area (often referred to as Batwa) told us that they also prefer to receive information in local languages. They prefer to receive that information face-to-face from someone from their community who can navigate the specificities of the variant of local languages spoken in their communities. One research participant in Elanga said, “We prefer to communicate with the health workers in Twa, but they do not understand our dialect.” 

Terminology is key for comprehension and trust

Terminology is important in health communication. In eastern DRC a key lesson was that people didn’t appreciate dehumanizing terms, for example referring to those sick with Ebola as “cases”. Research participants in North Kivu identified the term cas suspect as having criminal connotations. The same issue came up in Equateur where research participants said that “suspect case” had criminal connotations and could also be associated with users of witchcraft. 

Furthermore, as in eastern DRC, in Equateur we found that some concepts are difficult to translate into local languages and some words continue to be communicated in other languages without translation or without consistent translation. One health communicator from Mapeke acknowledged, “There are difficulties, especially if the communicator speaks French, English words and even […] Kinshasa Lingala and Lingala Makanja which is [harder to understand].”

Problematic terminology can endanger communities and undermines communities’ trust in responders. The lack of trust in eastern DRC had serious consequences for communities and responders alike in the 10th Ebola outbreak. 

Language and communication needs must be considered for responders to be accountable to people who need information

After the end of the Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC, reports of sexual exploitation came to light. Survivors reported not knowing how to report abuse or make complaints. Our research participants in Equateur reported a similar lack of information about reporting mechanisms. Alongside improving communication around reporting, it is important to ensure that feedback mechanisms and support offered to survivors are accessible to all, including speakers of marginalized languages. A research participant from Bokaka told us, “We prefer to give our opinions to people who listen to us and who respect us, and we prefer to do the interviews in person to express ourselves clearly.” We have found that offering information and services in people’s preferred languages, channels, and formats can facilitate trust and mutual respect between responders and communities.

Key recommendations for humanitarian responders in the DRC

• Integrate language data questions into data collection
• Translate community-facing materials into local languages; field test them to make sure they are understood and acceptable to local people
• Equip health workers with appropriate tools and training in the relevant languages

During our research and activities in Equateur, health communicators and communities shared their experiences with us. It is important that all responders learn from the mistakes of past health interventions and prioritize communication and language needs to be better prepared to respond to future health crises.

Funded by UNICEF and UK Aid, TWB put in place a local team of researchers and language experts in Equateur to support partners in the 11th Ebola response in Equateur in 2020. 

TWB’s tools for Ebola responses in DRC can be found on our site. Materials and tools are available in English, French, and local languages. To find out more about TWB’s activities in DRC please contact [email protected]

Written by Laure Venier, TWB’s Program Coordinator, DRC.

Translators improve lives by translating lifesaving information for people who speak marginalized languages. Those who volunteer as part of the Translators without Borders (TWB) community have a range of experiences and skills. They share our vision of a world where knowledge knows no language barriers. We are grateful for all our translators, and we love sharing their stories.

Meet Aghilas 

• A TWB translator who has donated 70,287 words from English to Arabic, as of February 2021
• Loves his beautiful hometown of Bizerte, Tunisia
• A night-owl, who prefers to translate at night!

Where did it all begin? 

In his home city of Bizerte, Tunisia, Aghilas wanted to offer his professional services to international humanitarian organizations to support people in need. It all came from a desire to support communities that have been marginalized, in countries affected by war, and people facing gender-based violence. He thought volunteering as a translator would enable him to better establish his career, offering useful professional experience along the way. He found the opportunity he had been looking for in TWB. On discovering TWB, Aghilas found an organization with values that matched his own, and a shared mission to make crucial information accessible to people in a language they understand. 

Daily devotion 

Like many of us over the last year, Aghilas works online from home. Pandemic restrictions left his translation schedule largely unaffected. Even before the lockdown, Aghilas enjoyed a routine, devoting three hours each evening to volunteering as a translator and reviser. It’s a practice he has stuck to almost daily, which has allowed him to focus on bigger revision tasks for TWB. In doing that, he has translated over 70,000 words for 25 different nonprofit organizations. 

The main project of focus in recent months informed people about “Public health and social measures for COVID-19 response in low capacity and humanitarian settings.” The guidance is intended for humanitarians working with communities and local authorities to reduce the risk of spread and the impact of the disease. It was developed in collaboration with the American Red Cross (ARC), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), UNICEF, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHABITAT), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Health Organization (WHO), and Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) members. Aghilas saw it as his responsibility to devote time to revising as many COVID-19-related documents as he could. He was determined to further the dissemination of accurate, credible information to the Arabic-speaking world and support people through the pandemic.

Asked how volunteering with TWB has impacted his life, Aghilas responded:

“It is truly a life experience. I am proud that I dedicated my skills for a good, noble cause, and made a difference in the worldwide community. Through my translations I supported those in need, provided them with basic and crucial information, and even helped save lives.”

He goes as far as to say it shaped a new approach to translation for him. 

“In fact, I believe that translation not only has the power of bridging communication gaps between cultures but it can forge a better world for affected populations as it responds to the challenges they face and prevents the occurrence of disasters.”

Three memorable moments with TWB 

Aghilas says that after just one year volunteering with TWB, he has some great memories to share. 

1. Winning third prize in the Translation Marathon in September 2019.
2. Receiving a recommendation letter on LinkedIn from my lovely mentor, Ambra, TWB’s Senior Community Officer. 
3. Achieving my goal of donating 70,000 words!  

Aghilas reminisces, “It has been a fruitful and rewarding journey. I have enjoyed every day with TWB so far. It has been a great adventure that I will never forget. Indeed, words cannot describe how grateful I am for the whole TWB team.”

Three tips from Aghilas on volunteering as a translator

1. Join TWB to gain confidence and experience as a translator, especially if you’re a beginner looking to take the first steps in your career.
2. Check your notification settings to ensure you see new tasks in your language pair.
3. Practice as much as possible: hard work always pays off. 

He explains, “You are part of an honorable humanitarian mission to share vital information and improve this world, making it a safer place to live. Believe me, every word matters.”

Written by Danielle Moore, Communications Officer for TWB. Interview responses by Aghilas Ait Mihoub, Volunteer Translator for TWB.