Taking innovation global with two-way communications with refugees

How does one actually go about seeking asylum? What resources are available to displaced people in different countries? When must a refugee renew the ID they received from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency? These are just a few of the countless, daunting questions people must grapple with once they’ve been forced to flee their country.

Displaced people depend on timely access to information and resources for their health, safety, and self-reliance. UNHCR is committed to communicating with communities efficiently and effectively — both face to face and online — but this poses a challenge in many contexts. Many UNHCR Operations are overwhelmed by requests for help, in some cases receiving as many as 200,000 calls per month, in addition to providing in-person support. With historic numbers of people forced to flee, and funding for humanitarian responses shrinking, UNHCR has been grappling with the urgent imperative to communicate better and on a larger scale with less.

One innovative approach the Innovation Service has been piloting since 2020 to engage with communities at scale is now on a path to becoming mainstreamed into UNHCR programming. This solution, a WhatsApp-based messaging service, allows forcibly displaced and stateless people across the globe to easily and immediately reach the organization using a channel that fits seamlessly into their everyday lives.

Over the last four years, this tool reached more than 280,000 users across 16 countries — from the Americas to the Middle East and North Africa to Asia and the Pacific — bringing UNHCR closer to meeting the strategic objectives of its Digital Transformation Strategy, which aims to expand digital inclusion, digital protection, and digital services for communities. Now, as it consolidates from dispersed pilot projects into organizational practice, we’re reflecting on how this tool evolved, how it performed across different operational contexts, and how UNHCR will be building on this experience.

An urgent need and a simple premise

UNHCR understands that the best way to reach people is to meet them where they are. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, rendering face-to-face engagement all but impossible in many contexts, this became a more urgent challenge than ever. Seeking to supplement existing remote communication channels, including the protection hotline and the HELP site, attention turned to one particularly promising option: WhatsApp.

Just eight years ago, messaging apps were a relatively new and untested tool for humanitarian action; however, they were beginning to attract attention from across the sector due to the significant opportunities and risks they present. Listening to the communities UNHCR works with and for has revealed that WhatsApp is a highly popular channel in many contexts, enabling refugees to communicate with friends and family. As Monica Vazquez Rodriguez, External Relations Officer in Moldova, puts it:

“We work with human beings. So, if you’re here [on your phone] all day, why wouldn’t they be?”

Grasping that starting premise was fairly simple. But transforming it into a global WhatsApp-based communications solution, tailored to be effective in wide-ranging displacement contexts, was no easy task. Exploring two-way engagement through messaging apps at scale for one of the first times in its history, UNHCR needed to merge the accessibility and usability of WhatsApp, a preferred and trusted channel for refugees in many contexts, with the quality assurance and data protection essential to avoid exposing users to additional risks.

In early 2020, with few avenues available to reach refugees in person, the UNHCR Innovation Service embraced a new way forward through its digital channels, and the Turn.io WhatsApp pilot was born.

Creating new communication channels

To build this new messaging service, UNHCR worked with Turn.io, a small WhatsApp business solutions provider that supports social impact organizations to engage with communities. Using the WhatsApp Business API service, Turn.io helped develop a system design prioritizing data privacy and minimizing personal data collection. Furthering UNHCR’s commitment to data protection, extensive Data Protection Impact Assessments were undertaken in each Operation implementing the service. Creating a secure, effective tool was a collaborative effort between Operations (among them Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Algeria, and Indonesia), the Innovation Service, and other UNHCR actors, including the Division of International Protection, the Legal Affairs Service, and the Data Protection Office.

Operations created distinct services adapted to their local context, combining automated with human-assisted responses to meet communities’ needs. In Algeria, for instance, following consultations with community members, UNHCR officers combined and compiled their diverse expertise — on everything from legal assistance to gender-based violence support — to add to the service. Massilia Guizem, UNHCR Senior Protection Assistant in Algeria, says her team’s goal was “to enrich the information, but make it also user-friendly,” offering succinct, clear, and effective guidance in relevant languages, like Arabic.

Community engagement was central to the development process, which continued throughout the pilot, as UNHCR worked with people forced to flee to optimize the service’s features and functionality. After initial soft launches, for testing purposes, Operations socialized the new messaging service widely — via word of mouth and campaigns on existing digital channels — to promote uptake, then worked with Turn.io to improve the service in response to feedback.

In some cases, communities required time to adapt. In Mexico, the team noticed there was a learning curve for users to interact with the automated components of the platform, as opposed to speaking personally with a UNHCR representative. While the messaging service did allow refugees to speak directly with UNHCR colleagues in pressing situations, its general purpose was — and remains — to immediately answer standard questions with generated responses. Over time, communities grew accustomed to this new form of communication, which supplements but does not replace other existing channels.

Combating information precarity

Uncertainty worsens insecurity. Access to timely, reliable information is crucial to enable displaced people to “make informed decisions, plan for their future, and preserve hope,” as UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi has said.

UNHCR colleagues in countries where the WhatsApp solution was rolled out reported that the new tool made it easier for people to find the help they needed in their own language and in simple, understandable terms. In Mexico, for instance, communities were able to learn the requirements and process to seek asylum. In Indonesia, the messaging service was indispensable to refugees struggling to navigate the UNHCR ID renewal process amidst the pandemic. Refugees in Algeria discovered a variety of services available to them, including registration, refugee status determination, resettlement, gender-based violence (GBV) support, education, health, complementary pathways, family reunification, and vocational training. This was a step forward not only in making support more accessible but also in strengthening trust in UNHCR and its ability to deliver assistance.

In Algeria, refugees from Egypt, Cameroon, and Mali say that the WhatsApp service has become a widely trusted source of information, promoting dignified, self-sufficient futures. One woman, a mother unable to travel to the UNHCR office to ask about educational opportunities, learned about the chatbot from a fellow refugee and, subsequently, was able to get her questions answered and enroll her daughter in school. The service has also helped refugees seek help on sensitive topics. Fatoumata, a 28-year-old refugee from Mali, emphasizes how the availability of information on GBV services through the messaging service has helped women:

“It is a sensitive question and women are not very comfortable talking about it, so it’s easier to let them find the information on where to complain, how to get help. … It’s something that a lot of people like.”

 

Adapting to meet specific needs

Given the wide range of displacement contexts, the messaging service evolved to look different in each country in which it was implemented. Throughout the pilot, UNHCR continuously sought feedback from communities, working to understand the most salient needs of forcibly displaced and stateless people across different countries. Discerning and responding to these needs were essential for building a globally scalable solution: an architecture supporting Operations to establish uniquely-designed services in consistently safe and secure ways.

Innovation requires iteration, and across the three-year pilot and transition phase, UNHCR Operations worked to adapt content on the messaging service as quickly as possible in response to feedback from communities. In Ecuador, for example, the team added information on sexual and reproductive health after hearing from women in the community who were unfamiliar with available services and seeking help.

Along with adapting the content offered, it was at times necessary to modify the tool itself according to community preferences. In Indonesia, some users were confused by the initial step of providing informed consent before asking questions of the messaging service, finding the platform too complicated to use. So, the team worked to simplify this step with buttons and more specific messages to guide the process, maintaining UNHCR’s attention to data protection while also making the tool easier for people to navigate and, thus, more widely accessible. In Ecuador, a lower literacy level among some users was addressed by including audio versions of all platform content, allowing illiterate users to navigate the platform to access information.

Expanding humanitarians’ toolkits

Facilitating immediate conversations was a boon not only for communities but also for overextended humanitarians. UNHCR’s Ecuador and Mexico Operations found that, following the introduction of the messaging service, colleagues were less overwhelmed by incoming requests for help. As communities discovered they could quickly and easily get answers to their burning questions via WhatsApp, already their most-used channel for personal communications, many no longer felt the need to reach out directly to UNHCR staff. This helped free up time for UNHCR to more effectively and efficiently provide communities with crucial services.

In addition to boosting productivity, the messaging service likewise has the potential to enhance UNHCR’s understanding of communities’ needs. Managing and analyzing data generated during the pilot — for instance, regarding the types of information most commonly sought in different contexts — could help UNHCR more effectively meet the moment, targeting and addressing specific concerns.

Learning from limitations

While the WhatsApp messaging service represents a breakthrough in UNHCR’s two-way communications with refugees, it is not a silver bullet. Throughout the pilot, working with a small social enterprise like Turn.io presented challenges as well as opportunities for ideation and growth. For instance, many features were still in development upon project launch. However, this gave UNHCR the ability to provide feedback and request specific changes that could be incorporated into the development roadmap.