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CAR

Central African Republic: Services for communities (S4C) assessment report, 15-25 January 2019

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Executive summary

The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) Services for Communities (S4C) assessment team conducted a series of interviews and held focus group discussions with community leaders, community delegates and randomly selected adult male and female groups in Bangassou, Kaga Bandoro and Bria between 15—25 of January 2019. The team surveyed approximately 270 people living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) sites and host communities at these three locations in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The assessment aimed to identify the information that matters most to IDP communities and to understand if and how they access information, the technological means of communication and information available to communities and challenges to accessing information.
It was found that mobile phone ownership remains very low in some locations. For those who do own mobile phones, text messaging is rarely used due to low literacy rates.

Further, charging of mobile devices presents challenges in the face of electricity shortages and poverty. Radio is the most commonly used source of information although it does not provide all the information that communities need. In most of the assessed areas, women were found to have much lower rates of accessibility to mobile phones than men.

The majority of affected communities do not feel they have adequate access to information regarding humanitarian assistance. Where information hotlines exist, awareness and usage of them remains low. Affected communities would like to receive more information on assistance from humanitarians and the security status of particular locations.

At the field level, there is almost no mechanized way to collect, log and follow-up on individual complaints.

Recommendations include creating information technology spaces to increase digital literacy among communities; providing affected populations with reliable voice connectivity services; and utilizing technologies to improve two-way communication with humanitarians.