When the Rohingya refugee response began in 2017, many agencies identified the language dynamics as a significant challenge. Translators without Borders’ (TWB) first review of lessons learned uncovered key insights on differences between women’s and men’s comprehension of second languages, the importance of verbal communication in the Rohingya language, and the need to adequately support responders tasked with facilitating multilingual interactions.
This learning review builds on insights from a further five years of evidence generation on language and communication barriers in the response, including TWB/CLEAR Global’s research, reports from other responding organizations, and sectoral coordination documents. It summarizes key findings on language and communication, recommendations of good practices, successes and challenges to implementing these, and remaining knowledge gaps.
Learning review of language inclusion in the Rohingya response