Rhizome

This online resource is designed to support the endgame of global polio eradication by bringing together quality guidance, tools, and standards for polio communication for development (C4D) strategies. Rhizome is an initiative of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and is managed and maintained by the polio team of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

Rhizome provides access to the 4-part Polio Communications Global Guide (see Related Summaries, below). Previous polio communication strategies often focused on risk communication and sought to reach caregivers with facts about polio and polio vaccination. The new strategy, which informs the Guide that is at Rhizome's centre, is specifically designed to move from a focus on the individual's knowledge and sense of individual risk to addressing broader community perceptions and social norms. At the core of the approach is a focus on missed children and a standardised collection and analysis of social data from at-risk countries. The strategy continually emphasises the need for a sophisticated understanding of community perception, attitudes, and knowledge at the centre of all social and behavioural change communication work and increasingly for it to be seen as a critical component to covering more children with the vaccine. A partnership between UNICEF and Harvard University's Opinion Research Program has significantly improved the polio eradication programme's ability to access quality data to understand attitudes and perceptions about polio vaccination in communities most at risk for infection. This information has provided actionable insights from 7 high-risk countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), India, and Uganda), which directly inform communication strategy design, channel selection, and messaging. The strategy is designed for countries facing any of the 3 different scenarios for polio transmission: 1) Outbreak; 2) Enduring Outbreaks/Endemics; 3) and Maintenance, with planning guidelines for all 3 scenarios, as well as tools, analysis and draft communication materials, messaging, and products that are available to support polio-endemic and new outbreak countries alike.

In its Library, Rhizome links readers to additional exterior resources focused on training, management tools, and innovation, tech, and data. For teams being deployed to outbreaks, the standard operating procedure (SOP) pages digitise GPEI's SOPs for outbreak response and include resource documents for outbreak responders.

Rhizome is designed to support teams in the field with best practice C4D resources and tools that are accessible, easy to digest, and effective in low-connectivity environments.