What We Do

We reach over 200 million people a year across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Here’s just some of the ways we’re transforming lives through media and communication:

Boosting health

In India, despite recent progress, more than 50,000 women a year die of pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. To improve maternity services and help save lives, we train health workers and give pregnant women healthcare advice via easy-to-access mobile phone services. Impressed by the effectiveness of Mobile Academy (our training course) and Kilkari (our mobile phone messaging service), the Indian government adopted our work nationally. They aim to train 10 million health workers and give advice to 1 million pregnant women and mothers.

Building resilience

Our “reality” TV series Amrai Pari (Together We Can Do It) in Bangladesh features rural communities that work together to prepare for and increase their resilience to extreme weather events. For nine months of the year the village of Narayanpur of Tala Upazila in southern Bangladesh is completely waterlogged. With the help of Amrai Pari and a surprise visit from the Bangladesh cricket team, families worked together to reinforce the banks of a pond, built platforms to help them grow vegetables and a bamboo bridge to help them cross the water.

Getting people talking

In Myanmar the hugely popular radio drama The Tea Cup Diaries aims to bridge ethnic and religious divides in this diverse country. More than half of listeners surveyed said they knew more about conflict resolution as a result of the programme.

Encouraging debate

In Afghanistan, our TV and radio debate programme Open Jirga reaches 3.2 million listeners and viewers, almost a third of whom are women. Audience members travel from all 34 provinces to take part in the show. The programme gives people a chance to discuss sensitive matters of national importance.

Humanitarian response

When the earthquake struck Nepal in April 2015, BBC Media Action responded quickly. Within hours our emergency Lifeline radio programmes were broadcasting via the BBC Nepali service and a network of more than 250 radio stations.

Where We Work

We have offices in 15 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya (also covering work in Somalia), Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia (also covering work in Algeria and Libya) and Zambia. Many of our projects reach beyond these countries. Our central office is based in London EC3.