MAG has achieved a new milestone in its innovative digital and mass media risk education efforts, reaching over 70 million people worldwide in 2024 alone, providing life-saving information to those living with the daily threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance.
Through digital platforms and media outlets in countries across the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South East Asia and West Africa, MAG shares critical safety information to children and adults.
These messages cover a range of topics including how to identify, avoid, and report explosive threats, how to prepare and respond to conflict scenarios, as well as how to prevent accidents from small arms and light weapons in the midst of populations.
The messages are delivered via social media, television, radio, and public display systems, ensuring access to essential risk education, particularly in areas where in-person humanitarian assistance is limited or certain population groups are otherwise difficult to reach.
MAG first introduced digital risk education in 2019 through a partnership with Facebook and the US Government. The pilot aimed to deliver safety messages to communities in Ninawa Governorate in northern Iraq – an area heavily affected by conflict. The campaign reached nearly one million people, with 94% of those surveyed confirming that the safety messages helped them better understand explosive hazards.
Following the success of the pilot and in response to major access challenges to humanitarian aid during the Covid-19 pandemic, MAG expanded digital risk education globally in 2021.
Today, digital and mass media safety messages are playing a critical role in helping tens of millions of people in multiple countries stay safe from the deadly legacy of war, and effectively tying safety advice with their immediate realities and concerns.
MAG Digital Explosive Ordnance Risk Education Manager Robin Toal says: “With around 70% of the world’s population now owning a mobile phone, and approximately five billion people active on social media, we can deliver critical safety information to communities living in conflict zones in a timely and effective manner when humanitarian access is severely restricted.
“As we continue to embrace digital technologies, we hope to reach millions more people every year and ease the suffering of those living in extreme hardship.”
Read more about MAG's digital risk education work here.
