{"id":1795,"date":"2018-02-12T19:14:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T19:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialsimulator.com\/?p=1795"},"modified":"2018-02-12T19:14:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T19:14:05","slug":"oxfams-haiti-crisis-two-lessons-crisis-communicators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helpfuldigital.com\/fr\/oxfams-haiti-crisis-two-lessons-crisis-communicators\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxfam’s Haiti crisis: two lessons for crisis communicators"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oxfam’s leadership and communications team has had a torrid weekend, dealing with a media story about\u00a0shocking allegations of a cover-up of sexual abuse of beneficiaries<\/a> in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2011.<\/p>\n

There will be countless crisis consultants offering their hot takes on what looks like a serious issue, and I’m certainly not close enough to the situation to pass judgement.<\/p>\n

But here are two observations that struck me, with lessons for wider crisis preparedness planning:<\/p>\n

1. Regulators and political stakeholders now move at the speed of a tweet<\/h3>\n

Within a few hours of the story being trailed (Friday afternoon), there were statements from the\u00a0government minister for charity regulation,<\/a>\u00a0and the former Cabinet minister for foreign aid<\/a>. The current Secretary of State was on Sunday breakfast show sofas criticising elements of Oxfam’s statement and threatening to withdraw funding<\/a> – ahead of her meeting with the charity leaders on Monday. By Monday, the Charity Commission, which regulates charities, was on sofas too<\/a> (note to self: we need a Sofa Simulator…) and on corporate social media saying they’d been misled and were ‘very angry’. BBC News had even prepped a data story<\/a> about Oxfam’s funding, from published data sources.<\/p>\n

There’s always politics<\/a> behind these situations, but the sheer speed at which regulators and politicians piled into this story in social and broadcast media, ahead of what presumably is a further investigation, was striking.<\/p>\n

Things which might previously have been discussed in frank phone calls or meetings, play out online and via broadcast news, and within hours. It’s particularly striking how the media spotlight is cast wider, much more quickly, and with much more bite than even five years ago (here’s that former Cabinet minister ‘taking to Twitter’):<\/p>\n

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The shocking scandal of the abuse of women & children in the Aid sector must end. @Oxfam<\/a> explain to the victims, your donors &to taxpayers what are you doing now to secure the prosecution of those responsible for these crimes in your organisation? The lack of action is shameful.<\/p>\n

— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) February 10, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n