Trust. Democracy. Transformed Lives.

"Today, the need to support free and independent media and to leverage storytelling as a force for good is urgent once again." - Simon Bishop, Chief Executive Officer, BBC Media Action

Established in 1999 with the name BBC World Service Trust, BBC Media Action uses media and communication to champion impartiality, creativity, and diverse representation in some of the most vulnerable international media and information landscapes. Their goal is to meet the needs of people who are most vulnerable to information disorder, division, and distrust, with a focus on those who are also under-served by public interest media and at the frontline of global risks and crises. In light of emerging and evolving global challenges, this report details BBC Media Action's 3-year (2024-2027) strategy.

As outlined here, BBC Media Action works in 30 countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Eastern and Central Europe, and Central America and the Caribbean. The organisation focuses on reaching and engaging marginalised groups and young people as agents of change across their communities. BBC Media Action's work is delivered through 4 activity types:

• Media development: BBC Media Action supports healthier media ecosystems through work with media organisations and networks and academic partners. The organisation supports local media to provide trustworthy news, current affairs, and social impact entertainment programming. They help to build resilience in public interest media in the face of challenges such as disruptive technologies, rising authoritarianism, and conflict.
• Media content: On broadcast and digital media platforms, BBC Media Action and their partners deliver storytelling that is designed to inform and inspire under-served audiences. Content works to build digital and media literacy, bring people together, bridge divides, and build trust.
• Media policy: BBC Media Action's thinking focuses on media policy, the future of journalism, and the role of media in tackling challenges.
• Research: Research is a cross-cutting function at BBC Media Action, underpinning all their work and evidence of impact. The focus is on research to understand under-served audiences and media ecosystems. BBC Media Action shares research insights widely.

While continuing and ramping up this work, BBC Media Action anticipates that the years 2024 and beyond will test them in new ways. Concerns include democratic decline, climate change, polarisation, and social exclusion. These elements are further compounded by media and communication landscapes that are increasingly characterised by fragmentation, co-option, and rapid and substantial technological evolution. There is a mutually reinforcing relationship between these macro trends and growing information disorder (including disinformation, misinformation, and information poverty). Per BBC Media Action: "Safeguarding civic space for open discourse, providing impartial content and platforms that enable citizens to understand their rights, and improving accountability will help to counter these headwinds - especially for communities which are currently overlooked and especially vulnerable."

In this context, between 2024-2027, BBC Media Action will prioritise three key shifts:

1. Cultivating a sharper, more relevant purpose: BBC Media Action will narrow and deepen their focus on three pressing global trends - information disorder, division, and distrust - in an effort to contribute to three key impact areas: stronger democracies, a safer, more habitable planet, and inclusive societies.
2. Positioning BBC Media Action as a global public good, while committing to localisation and a partner-first approach in their delivery: BBC Media Action will continue to deliver local projects, with a commitment to localisation and a partner-first approach. But they will also seek to influence the global media ecosystem for the better, leveraging insights from their local programming experience and research. They will seek to deliver impact across a wider range of geographies, working with partners for greater reach.
3. Maximising links with the BBC: BBC Media Action's work benefits from being part of the BBC, a public interest media organisation with depth and breadth across the global media landscape. BBC Media Action will look to work with new and emerging BBC products to help expand the impact of their work. Sharing BBC values, skills, and experience in ways that fit local contexts and benefit local partners will be at the core of the approach.

A note on partnership: "BBC Media Action will prioritise partners and collaboration with local actors, making space for them to lead and have a voice in decision-making forums. Where it is most beneficial for local partners to deliver, we support or enable them to do so. Where it is useful for us to have a more substantial role, because of time, capacity or security constraints, we work with local stakeholders to ensure that we do this in a contextually appropriate way with a view to ultimate local ownership."

The above-mentioned strategic shifts will be underpinned by several internal enablers. BBC Media Action will:

• Continue to leverage the wider BBC's digital expertise and learning, as well as talent from across BBC Media Action's countries and partners;
• Keep their environmental impact to a minimum, and ensure their own organisation is environmentally sustainable;
• Continue to strive to be a great place to work, driving a culture of belonging, inclusivity, and engagement; and
• Increase efforts to generate unrestricted income (flexible funding that is not tied to delivery of a specific programme).

The core measure of BBC Media Action's success remains the impact their work has on the ecosystems, partners, and communities they serve. During this strategy period, they will continue to strengthen the quality and impact of their research and pursue efforts to generate and communicate robust evidence from our work to influence media and development sector policy and organisational learning. Over the 3-year period, they will also track self-reported aggregate measures that are precursors or indicators of impact, including:

• Reach: From 2024 to 2027, BBC Media Action aims to reach 100 million people per year.
• Discussion as a result of the intervention: For example, in Afghanistan, 63% of people listening to BBC Media Action's Darman (Healing) radio programmes discussed the content with others afterwards.
• Learning from the intervention: For example, in Zambia, 54% of people listening to sexual and reproductive health radio programmes BBC Media Action supported said they had learned something from the programme(s).
• Taking action as a result of the intervention: For example, in Indonesia, 65% of people reached by BBC Media Action's television or online content on climate change said they had taken action as a result of watching.

BBC Media Action will also introduce cross-project measures that track how their work is having an effect on media organisations and ecosystems, and they will explore cross-project measures relating to their three focus impact areas (democracy, planet, and inclusion).

Click here for brief highlights from the strategy document (3 pages, PDF).

Click here for the abridged version (13 pages, PDF).