About our work
For nearly a decade, our work in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus has focused on supporting media platforms to become truly public service, through training and mentoring based on the editorial values and principles of the BBC.
In Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, we are working with local and national media outlets and national and international partners in our Eastern Neighbourhood programme. We are supporting partners through training, mentoring and skill-building to improve audiences’ access to high-quality, accurate and engaging content, which can help counter disinformation and support democracy and prosperity in these politically fragile contexts. And, in addition to supporting journalists, editors, and producers by strengthening editorial skills and strategy, we include a focus on policies and practices for diversity, inclusion and safeguarding.
In Moldova, we are currently supporting Tele-Radio Moldova’s transformation from a state broadcaster to public service broadcaster, while in Ukraine we keep working with the Ukrainian public broadcaster, Suspilne, a key partnership during wartime.
Our past projects include Support to Independence Media in the Eastern Partnership Countries, a multi-country effort to support independent public interest media to produce accurate and impartial journalism and creative content.
We continue to work extensively with Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne (formerly UA:PBC), as it transitions away from a state model. This has included support for a modern newsroom and the development of multi-platform programming that provides trusted information and a forum for debate and discussion.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, we have continued our support to independent media outlets in Ukraine to help them stay on-air, and conducted Lifeline training to help them better serve their audiences with the information they need most to survive and cope in wartime.
Watch to find out what it has been like for Suspilne to broadcast through the conflict. (Warning: contains strong language)