Championing Community Feedback in Uganda
08 September 2026
When people are affected by a crisis, they need more than assistance. They need information, a way to ask questions, and a channel to say when something is not working. Without that, organizations respond based on what they think communities need rather than what communities actually say they need. Feedback loops close slowly, if at all.
The Netherlands Red Cross works with National Societies to build practical feedback systems that work at scale. Unlike a fixed platform solution, this service works with the tools and channels a National Society already has in place, strengthening what exists rather than replacing it. The focus is on the full cycle: collecting feedback across channels that communities already use, making sense of it, closing the loop with the people who shared it, and using what is learned to improve the response. Where local media has significant reach or where communities are hard to access directly, Social Media Listening can be added to capture what people are saying beyond formal feedback channels.
Support also covers information dissemination: bulk messaging to share updates, chatbots to answer frequently asked questions, and referral systems to point people to available services. The aim is two-way communication, not just broadcasting.
Support has been provided across protracted crisis, localisation and climate resilience contexts, in countries including Uganda, Morocco, Ukraine, Lebanon, Zambia and beyond.
How we work together
Support starts with understanding what a National Society already has and what it needs. It can include:
- Identifying current feedback channels, tools, available resources and communication goals together with the National Society
- Demonstrating possible solutions and selecting the approach that best fits the context and operational capacity
- Conducting one to two weeks of in-country work, consulting community members and volunteers to ensure solutions reflect the reality on the ground
- Running workshops with key stakeholders to confirm selected solutions and contextualize the technical setup
- Training main users to enable immediate implementation after handover
- Providing remote support from The Netherlands during and after implementation
Local example
In Morocco, the Moroccan Red Crescent built a centralized community feedback system in response to the 2023 earthquake, integrating a new hotline with digital feedback management across all affected branches.
“This system is built to grow. We can scale it across all branches of the Moroccan Red Crescent to ensure consistent feedback management and accountability nationwide. Expanding it will strengthen our reputation as a community-centred organization, build trust, and make evidence-based decision-making part of everything we do.”
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