BBC Media Action (Bangladesh)

Our Bangladesh office runs diverse and wide-reaching projects spanning long-term development and critical humanitarian assistance.

We responded quickly to the Rohingya refugee crisis, and currently lead the Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability – an innovative model for better informing and coordinating humanitarian efforts to support Rohingya and host communities. With our partners, we’re providing trusted information, dispelling harmful rumours, and providing advice, tools and training to over 50 agencies to help them understand the changing needs and perceptions of Rohingya people.

We work in partnership with the International Rescue Committee and funded by US Bureau of Population, Refugee and Immigration to ensure integrated approaches to delivering health, nutrition, livelihood and protection services to both the Rohingya community and the host communities. With UNHCR and Terre Des Hommes, we deliver multimedia content and support to religious leaders, Rohingya people and volunteers, to improve community engagement and promote community-led approaches.

We are also leading YouthRISE, a four-year consortium programme funded by USAID supporting the host communities in Cox’s Bazar to reduce conflict and violence, including gender-based violence, and promote peaceful conflict resolution.

Bangladesh is one of three countries where we’re delivering our flagship media development initiative, Protecting Independent Media for Effective Development (PRIMED). We aim to support individual media outlets to generate professional, ethical and informative content to understand and engage audiences, and to develop effective and sustainable business models.

Our previous projects have included tackling gender inequality and economic empowerment through The Future of Work, working with women in garment factories to encourage them to overcome traditional barriers to pursue higher-level positions - smashing gender stereotypes, building skills and earning more to support their families.

Through our AGAMI (Accelerated Gender-Equitable Adolescents, Maternal and Child Intervention) project, we developed a mobile app to train community health workers in sexual and reproductive health issues. And our Hello, I Am multimedia programme, across radio, social media, public service announcements and community screenings, aimed to reduce rates of child marriage, school drop-out and teenage pregnancy. Our research shows fathers and boys have a better understanding of the value of girls’ education after engaging with our work.