Improving communication, engagement and accountability in all we do.
Community engagement and accountability (CEA) is an approach to Red Cross Red Crescent programming and operations. It is supported by a set of activities that help put communities at the centre of what we do, by integrating communication and participation throughout the programme cycle or operation.
CEA is the process of and commitment to providing timely, relevant and actionable life-saving and life-enhancing information to communities. It is about using the most appropriate communication approaches to listen to communities’ needs, feedback and complaints, ensuring they can actively participate and guide Red Cross Red Crescent actions. CEA supports those involved in programmes and operations to adopt innovative approaches to better understand and engage with people and communities and help them address unhealthy and unsafe practices. It maximizes the Red Cross Red Crescent’s unique relationship with the community to help them speak out about the issues that affect them and influence decision and policy-makers to implement positive changes.
What is CEA?
Minimum actions
The CEA Guide
The CEA Toolkit
Recent additions to the CEA resources library
This poster provides safety tips in the case of a flood.
This poster provides information on a Red Cross hotline with the relevant telephone numbers, opening hours, available languages and more.
This illustration provides simple ways people can take care of themselves.
CEA in Action
In focus: World Radio Day
Radio is a powerful tool to engage and help affected communities across the world. Read more about our work.
In focus: Ebola
Community engagement has been central to responding the Ebola emergency in West Africa and to keep communities safe and the virus contained.
In focus: Migration
Virtualvolunteer.org helps migrants find local support and provides tips on how to keep safe and healthy.
In focus: TERA
The TERA system provides life-saving information when and where it is needed during an emergency or crisis.
News stories
The excited chatter from the waiting crowd quiets down the moment the brightly-dressed performers take the stage. The subject of the play is nothing poetic or Shakespearian, but the audience is eager, understanding the gravity of the messages to be conveyed in the performance. The play will be about preparing for floods and landslides.
Ganeshmaya Dannekhu, 72, wakes up every morning at 5am to clean her small shed and feed and milk her cow. She then sets off for the local dairy to sell her milk, arriving no later than 6:30am. With typically nine litres of milk to carry, it’s a strenuous 20-minute walk to the dairy from Jhaukhel, her village in Nepal’s Bhaktapur District. Many of the buildings in the village were severely damaged by the massive earthquake that hit the region in April 2015.
In December 2015, the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and the IFRC decided to film the baseline study being carried out for a new complaints and response mechanism for community-based disaster risk reduction and water, sanitation and hygiene programmes …