Journal Article
|CommentaryMisinformation in humanitarian programmes: Lessons from the MSF Listen experience
Abstract
While health misinformation is important to address in humanitarian settings, over-focusing on it can obfuscate a more holistic understanding of a community’s needs in a crisis. Through Médecins Sans Frontières’ experience of deploying a platform to tackle health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, this field report argues that, while important, health misinformation became a diversionary topic during COVID-19, which represented a lack of trust between communities, humanitarian organisations and health institutions, rather a fundamental obstacle to effective humanitarian interventions.
From our practitioners’ viewpoint, we reflect on the deployment of the ‘MSF Listen’ platform in our programmes and how it evolved from a purely misinformation-focused digital tool to a broader workflow and approach to understanding community needs in crises through accountable management of community feedback.
From our practitioners’ viewpoint, we reflect on the deployment of the ‘MSF Listen’ platform in our programmes and how it evolved from a purely misinformation-focused digital tool to a broader workflow and approach to understanding community needs in crises through accountable management of community feedback.
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English