UNHCR: Community-Led Online Misinformation and Rumour Management Challenge
Deadline: 15-Jul-2020
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Innovation Service through its Digital Access, Inclusion and Participation Programme has announced a call for proposals to test the creation and management of a rumors tracking – misinformation debunking system, managed with the support of existing UNHCR community volunteers (or equivalent), partners and POCs.
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Scope and Objectives
The system would seek to leverage existing focal points and networks (i.e. outreach volunteers, community leaders and representatives) to engage them via WhatsApp (or equivalent) to support them to detect, categorize and respond to misinformation, rumors and queries at community/settlement level. The system would seek to train a series of ‘administrators’ to receive and categorize rumors and questions received by UNHCR focal points, volunteers etc. The administrators would be trained to identify and disseminate verified answers, connecting with the broader humanitarian community and with UNHCR to find reliable information to develop answers in the form of videos, individual responses, audio files and so on. Depending on the situation in country, there could be wider engagement with other actors already working on rumour management and misinformation.
The phases of the system set-up would usually follow the following steps:
A mapping of existing social media channels/networks – including for example any existing WhatsApp Trees.
A mapping of existing community structures, outreach volunteers, and other UNHCR associated staff/volunteers, partners and structures/groups on the ground along with other actors working on rumour management;
Selection of administrators for the system ensuring representation of different marginalised and vulnerable groups;
Training of administrators and design dedicated workflows to process rumors, respond and track them over time;
Deploying the system in the field, first with trusted sources and trusted groups, and eventually thinking about opening it up to all PoCs;
Monitoring the system, adapt and re-adjust the workflows over time before finalizing the system;
Eligibility Criteria
Only UNHCR country operations are able to apply to the challenge and one submission is accepted per operation. This Expression of Interest should command the support of senior management within the operation.
Evaluation Criteria
For the Expression of Interests, awarding of funds will be based on the following criteria equally weighted:
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Challenge: Framing of the Challenge and evidence / data to support it with a key focus on community engagement and feedback
Solution: Articulation of the potential of the initiative as a solution to address key aspects covered in this background note. Specific attention will be give to proposed levels of community engagement / meaningful participation
Impact: Potential Impact of the solution in not only in terms of the number of community members supported, but also how the intervention would affect them in their daily lives and build broader community resilience
Feasibility: Based on approach, administration, tentative budget a determination on how viable the project will be and its level of sustainability.
For more information, visit https://www.unhcr.org/innovation/digital-inclusion-call/