The BBC World Service Trust is the independent international charity of the BBC which uses media to advance development worldwide. As part of one of the world’s leading media organisations, the Trust is committed to improving the quality of people’s lives in developing and transitional countries through the innovative use of media.

The Trust’s work aims to: raise awareness among mass and opinion-former audiences, affect behaviour change, influence policy and transfer skills and knowledge. The Trust is organised into the following areas:

The Media Development Group works to strengthen free and independent media to hold governments to account, to help ensure inclusiveness in society, and to provide a channel through which people from all sections of society including the poor, disadvantaged or marginalised have a voice. It does this through a number of strategies and tools including change management, media reconstruction and training solutions.

The Development Communications Group develops innovative media solutions to support key development priorities such as health, education and governance. In education, the Trust works to develop and deliver basic educational programming, deliver aspirational programming to inform audiences about their rights and choices, and to raise awareness of development issues and stimulate informed debate at local, regional and global levels. In health, the Trust works to influence reductions in mortality and morbidity, specifically to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
In all of its work, the Trust has a strong commitment to delivering impact and cutting-edge media solutions to development challenges. The Research & Learning (R&L;) Group focuses on four key activities: (1)providing Trust projects with audience and market insights to guide project strategies; (2)conducting qualitative and quantitative research studies to capture the impact of all Trust media interventions; (3) building capacity in audience research skills and methodology on projects in country, and (4) documenting and disseminating the learning from the Trust’s projects internally and to the wider development community.

The Trust is funded by a wide range of donors, private foundations and other development partners. The Trust is a global operation working in over 40 countries, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East and is comprised of approximately 600 staff worldwide, of whom more than 90% work in and are from the developing countries in which it works. The Trust’s major operations are based in Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Burma/Thailand, Cambodia, India, Iraq, Nigeria, Russia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, and Ukraine. As the BBC’s international charity, the Trust has access to the BBC World Service’s 149 million regular listeners and draws on the BBC’s values and resources. The Trust has won numerous awards from local and international development and media organisations.