The BBC World Service Trust is the BBC's international charity. We use media and communications to reduce poverty and promote human rights, thereby enabling people to build better lives.
Independently funded
We are funded by external grants and voluntary contributions, mainly from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union, UN agencies and charitable foundations. We receive a small amount of core support from the BBC (both in kind and cash).
Vision
We believe that independent and vibrant media are critical to the development of free and just societies.
We share the BBC's ambition to provide accurate, impartial and reliable information to enable people to make informed decisions.
We aspire to a world where individuals and civil society use media and communications to become effective participants in their own political, economic, social and cultural development.
Strategy
To achieve this vision, we partner with civil society, the media and governments to build long term development solutions. We do this by:
Where we work
We work in over 40 developing and transitional countries in:
Focus
In order to achieve the most critical development goals, we focus on six key issues:
In total, we produced over 1,000 hours of education and health programming in 28 languages in 2006/2007. Our TV, radio and online programmes reached audiences totalling 119 million people worldwide. We also trained more than 1,500 journalists, broadcasters and support staff.
In 2006/2007 we employed 500 staff worldwide, 80% of whom are from and work in developing and transitional countries.
It is an old saying that knowledge means power; the better informed you are, the greater your chances of success.
Kofi Annan, Former Secretary General of the United Nations