The Documentary Podcast

Zimbabwe has over 14 million people but fewer than 20 psychiatrists. After years of economic turmoil, unemployment and HIV, mental health is a huge challenge and doctors estimate one in four Zimbabweans battles with depression or anxiety. Lucia is one of the 700 grandmothers in the country turning the nation around. She sits on a wooden bench using a gentle form of cognitive behavioural or talking...

In a few short months the coronavirus has turned the world upside down. Alongside the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of deaths, the world is now bracing itself for a brutal economic impact. Whether it is components for manufacturing, our food and medical supplies or the contents of our shop shelves and our fridges we depend on complex global economic relationships which now look shakier than eve...

Health experts and listeners from Ghana, the US, Canada, China, Switzerland and Italy share their views of life in a post-pandemic world.

All over the world engineers are being called on to re-purpose and solve the problems the global pandemic creates. We bring together an audience of engineers and the general public from six continents to share insights to inspire innovation worldwide. How are engineers reinventing our world to fight the virus? What can they do to re-imagine the everyday and make life safer and easier across the gl...

East Africa has seen the worst invasion of desert locusts for decades and there are warnings of even larger swarms to come. Millions of people across the region, who are already feeling the impact of coronavirus and floods, will now face increased hunger and poverty. Just an average swarm can eat the same in a day as 2,500 people for a year. For Assignment, the BBC’s Senior Africa Correspondent An...

Public health leader Dr Tom Frieden reflects on the ongoing global pandemic. An expert on infectious disease, Dr Frieden is a former director of the US States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was a leading figure in the global response to the Ebola outbreak and he now heads Resolve to Save Lives, an Initiative of Vital Strategies, an organisation dedicated to the prevention of epidem...

BBC Media editor Amol Rajan and a panel of guests analyse how the coronavirus pandemic has created new opportunities to change our world. They range across topics including geopolitics and the rise of China; the role of technology and ownership of information; and perceived and genuine inequality. Guests will include: Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister Michelle Bachelet, former president...

As the pandemic continues to impact the world, BBC World Service's Nina Robinson, talks to journalists from two daily newspapers in India and the United States as we explore its impact on people in their regions. Working with experienced editors and reporters from the daily Mumbai Mirror and Kentucky’s Courier Journal, this documentary gets under the skin of two newsrooms during this time of great...

The pandemic has led to job cuts and reduced salaries, so does going to university still make financial sense? And if you took a cut in wages during lockdown but are now back at work, how should you talk to your boss about pay? Listeners share their stories and get expert advice on managing money in the time of coronavirus, including: - How to increase your chances of getting a job in the post-pan...

We speak to people in China's capital, Beijing, where a fresh spike of Covid-19 cases has been detected. Fan Fan and Richard tell us what it feels like to go through lockdown all over again. Meanwhile, the most intense outbreaks are now in Latin America. We hear accounts of how communities in countries including Peru and Colombia are dealing with the disease. As restrictions ease elsewhere, busine...

Since the outbreak of coronavirus something strange has been happening – attacks on telephone masts and telecom workers are being reported all across the world. That’s because some people think that 5G can make you sick – from coronavirus to cancer and a whole host of other symptoms. Even more worryingly, some scientists say they can prove that it’s harmful. But at a time when many businesses are...

When a name very similar to journalist Michelle Madsen’s was used as the cover for a fake news hatchet job on a Senegalese politician, she found herself entangled in a web of deception that she is seeking to unravel.

How has Latin America dealt with the pandemic? The lockdown, the needs of the economy, cash pay-outs to the poor, culture, tradition and safety in a time of crisis are all discussed with an expert panel and questions from the public across the region. Presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by Dr Denise Dresser - political scientist, Mexico. Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Braganca - Chamber of Representative...

In the days since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May, we have witnessed many things from police officers marching alongside protesters; to the political debate about US police reform; to the toppling of statues that symbolise the history of slavery and racism. Nuala McGovern takes you through conversations with some of the people involved in the global discussion that is taking pla...

There are currently 200,000 seafarers stuck working on vessels across the globe and unable to be relieved of their duties. These are the men and women responsible for transporting 90% of the world's trade, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear. While goods are still flowing, the people transporting these goods are struggling. Every month, 100,000 seafarers leave their ships and are replaced...

There is a sense of fatigue around the lockdown. Ray Gillenwater owns a gym, and explains that if he’s ordered to close down again – he will civilly resist. Kody Siegal explains how the tight restrictions of Panama are not quite as tough as you would expect, and Luiza Marchiori from Florianopolis returns to explain how the worst case scenario predicted by many in Brazil appears to be coming true.

Riots and protests have broken out in cities across the USA following the death of George Floyd after his arrest by white police officers in Minneapolis. But one black American’s impassioned plea for calm has gone viral in the midst of the violence. Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike made an impromptu speech calling on his fellow citizens not to burn their city but to organise and mobilise and to us...

Six authors on different continents, write across distances, to convey thoughts and preoccupations, during their present isolation. While the world is held in the grip of this pandemic, there's nowhere to go, no escape, all the exterior space has been taken. The only refuge is inside, a home, a room.. in the interior of the psyche, surfing the seas and landscapes of the mind. In this moment of soc...

The death of George Floyd has provoked a global response and galvanised opinion. We bring together African Americans to discuss race and share experiences of racism in the US. We hear from people who have sought justice from police aggression, from those attempting reconciliation and from police officers themselves. What changes do they want to see to move America in the right direction?

With America engulfed again by protests against police brutality and racial discrimination, Rajini Vaidyanathan brings together a group of African-American thinkers to discuss how America might move beyond its current racial turmoil. In 2016 Rajini travelled the United States to report, for BBC World Service, on America’s problem with racism. In this discussion Rajini brings together people to fin...

In February this year, a Chechen blogger in hiding in Sweden was viciously assaulted by a man with a hammer as he slept. In the fight that followed, Tumso Abdurakhmanov managed to grab the hammer and defend himself, and filmed the aftermath of the attack and his interrogation of his assailant. Tumso was the third Chechen to be attacked in Europe in just a few months; he was the only one to survive...

Abortion clinics in Texas were forced to close their doors during the coronavirus lockdown. For several weeks, women wanting abortions could not get them. So what happened, and how did medical staff help? And, with a major Supreme Court decision on access to abortion due this summer, Philippa Thomas hears from the activists concerned that this period, with abortion unavailable for thousands of Tex...

Tens of millions of young people are leaving school and university only to find themselves job hunting in what could be one of the worst recessions in living memory. With widespread recruitment freezes and redundancies, what hope is there of the class of 2020 finding employment? Ruth Alexander speaks to young people from all over the world about their struggle to find work,

What is the pandemic like for people with autism? We hear from three parents in Chile, Spain and India who discuss the impact lockdown has had on their children with autism. They explain how their children seem happier away from the social environment of school, but that they are also concerned about the impact on their social skills. Plus, three American editors who work on newspaper pages writin...

What did you learn about sexual pleasure when you were growing up? Chances are, you didn't learn much in school. And if the latest research is anything to go by, we still have a lot to learn now. According to a US based study, 90% of heterosexual men said they climaxed during sex, while only 60% of heterosexual women said the same. In the UK, when the new sex education guidelines are introduced in...