MoIC to establish Crisis Communication Unit

Kathmandu, Sept. 14: The Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC) is mulling to establish a Crisis Communication Unit at the ministry.

Joint Secretary of the MoIC Suresh Adhikari said that the ministry wanted to establish the unit to acquire crisis related information from various ministries and other government agencies and disseminate it to the public through suitable communication channels.

He was speaking at a workshop on crisis communication in the capital, Wednesday.

Various agencies like the Department of Health Services under the Ministry of Health, National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) and Nepal Police under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) are disseminating crisis related information of their respective sectors, but the country lacks an integrated system for crisis communication.

“We need to inform and update people about floods, landslides, supply obstruction, epidemics and other crises in the country in time. The media should be informed correctly on time. Therefore, a dedicated unit is needed,” said Adhikari.

Ram Chandra Dhakal, Joint Secretary of the MoIC, maintained that the unit would not be a parallel agency to the NEOC and would work to link the NEOC’s information with the media channels.

The unit will organise training for the spokespersons and other officers involved in handling information.

“The unit will create a functional linkage or coordination with related ministries and line agencies. We also aim at setting up links with the NEOC and major information sources for uniformity in content dissemination and media handling,” said Dhakal.

NEOC has the only crisis communication unit in the country but lacks infrastructure and sufficient human resource.

But, as it functions under the MoHA, it has a very good network across the country because the key agencies working for crisis management - District Disaster Relief Committee, District Development Committee, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force – all report to the MoHA.

NEOC’s role in providing updated information to the media and general public during the devastating earthquakes in April and May last year was much appreciated.

The country manages communication infrastructure only in a national crisis. “Specially the government should start a project to establish a link amongst the government agencies for crisis information retrieval, processing and dissemination,” said Dhakal.

Adhikari claimed that as the MoIC was the focal agency for all the mass media channels, telecommunication and data services, it could handle the information efficiently. “Establishing the unit at the ministry is to enable it with information and make it an information gateway,” he said.

Communication expert Bernie Campbell said that timely dissemination of information helps to restore confidence of the people to the government.

“Trust on government may be weakened during the time of crisis due to its inefficiency to impart the right information at the right time. Therefore, there has to be a way or agency to put all the information together,” he said.

He suggested applying all messaging channels – face to face, town hall or community meeting, mass media, printed materials, social media and telephone – for crisis communication.

Nepal is prone to disasters like earthquakes, floods, landslides, droughts, avalanches, epidemics, famines, accidents, windstorms and glacier lake outbursts.