Conclusion - Word of Mouth: Learning from Polio Communication and Community Engagement Initiatives

Conclusion


Expenditure on communications and community engagement has been a small share of the polio program budget;²⁸ and the approved GPEI budget for these activities in 2017 and 2018 is approximately 8% of the entire polio program budget.²⁹ Although this is a comparatively small percentage, these efforts are vitally important to the overall polio strategy. Based on the polio program achievements, a strong case can be made for 8% to be minimum expenditure level for all health and development programs.

Derived from the analysis above, it is suggested that the core elements we have outlined—social mobilization, norms and culture, community-based surveillance, data-driven strategies, and operational oversight—are key for effective communication programs, regardless of whether the funding and management are internal or external to a country.

More specific to communication and community engagement action, the polio communication experience suggests that adopting the following seven practices is important for effective strategies and action:

1. Incorporate communication and community engagement strategies early—this is paramount.
2. From the beginning, link epidemiology, communications/community engagement, and program monitoring—it is not expensive and has a major payoff.
3. Encourage and support communities to speak up (and be willing to listen to them)—this will ensure relevance, resonance, trust, and engagement, which are crucially important.
4. Facilitate “listening” among health and development programs, governments, and the United Nations—this is more of an issue of organizational culture than it is of funding levels.
5. Ensure that communication strategies and products (be they print, media, social media, or interpersonal) are driven by data—this will increase effectiveness and reduce costs.
6. Have knowledgeable and empowered communication and community engagement focal points, whose job is to work with their medical, epidemiology, and monitoring equivalents to ensure collaborative and integrated strategies and actions.

Editor's note: Above is an excerpt from the July 2018 paper "Word of Mouth: Learning from Polio Communication and Community Engagement Initiatives - Insights and Ideas to Accelerate Action on Other Development Issues", from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP).

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Access the various parts of the document directly:

• Background
• Social Mobilization
• Norms and Culture
• Community-Based Surveillance
• Data-Driven Strategy
• Operational Oversight
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgments

This paper is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of the Cooperative Agreement AID-OAA-A-14-00028. The contents are the responsibility of the Maternal and Child Survival Program and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

The Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) is a global USAID initiative to introduce and support high-impact health interventions in 25 priority countries to help prevent child and maternal deaths. MCSP supports programming in maternal, newborn, and child health, immunization, family planning and reproductive health, nutrition, health systems strengthening, water/sanitation/hygiene, malaria, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and pediatric HIV care and treatment. MCSP will tackle these issues through approaches that also focus on household and community mobilization, gender integration, and digital health, among others.