Throughout the pandemic, civil society organizations (CSOs) have been crucial partners in reducing the impacts of COVID-19 on individuals and communities, particularly those in hard-to-reach vulnerable groups. The direct participation of CSOs – from planning through to the implementation and evaluation stages of preparedness, readiness and response – has also helped reinforce the actions of governments and has been a key factor in encouraging citizens to comply with guidance.
Now, to engage and empower CSOs, WHO/Europe has launched an initiative that will help them further contribute to the current COVID-19 response and benefit the future readiness and preparedness of countries and communities by:
- strengthening community readiness and resilience to emergencies
- connecting vulnerable communities to services
- enhancing inclusive governance.
Speaking at the online launch event, Dr Dorit Nitzan, Regional Emergency Director for WHO Europe, said, “The CSO initiative kicking off today is unprecedented and can be a real game changer in the way WHO, governments and communities address this and future emergencies.”
Putting a whole-of-society approach into practice
This initiative will be directly investing in 11 selected CSOs within 8 Member States in the WHO European Region to demonstrate how small investments in CSOs can have a meaningful impact.
The selected CSOs, which work directly with refugees and migrants, Roma populations, people living with disabilities, older people, religious leaders, women, and communities impacted by conflict, have a track record of working with international organizations and donors to make a difference for the communities they represent, by conducting needs assessments, addressing service disruption, and creating platforms for the inclusion of communities.
Some initiatives across the 8 projects include:
- piloting remote access to educational services for children and youth with disabilities in Greece;
- establishing health mediators for refugees and migrants in Serbia;
- involving retired health workers in coordinating the COVID-19 response in Krygyzstan;
- creating community boards for Roma populations in North Macedonia;
- fostering dialogue with communities impacted by conflict in Ukraine;
- engaging religious leaders from different faiths to encourage communities to get vaccinated in Israel;
- enhancing the skills of health workers in the areas of professional burnout and domestic violence in Georgia; and
- building the capacities of local authorities to engage refugee and migrant communities in Slovenia.
Increasing community ownership
As part of this initiative, the organizations will be piloting new bottom-up approaches, in collaboration with governments, to give communities a say in plans that affect their lives and to ensure they are involved in policy-making processes – an important part of a shift from community engagement to community empowerment.
With CSO participation, Member States can expect an increase in community resilience leading to a better implementation of national strategic preparedness and response plans for future emergencies.
WHO/Europe will be working directly with CSOs and empowering them to be agents of change by:
- establishing/leveraging trust relations between CSOs and communities, including when confidence in authorities is low;
- understanding and addressing people’s perceptions and concerns;
- reconciling science and society/religion (i.e. making sure that messages and measures are both scientifically sound and culturally acceptable);
- accessing vulnerable groups and providing them with relevant public health advice;
- mitigating fear and stigma for certain groups or measures;
- building community capacity for higher community resilience; and
- fostering inclusive governance that embeds the needs of community groups into emergency preparedness, readiness and response.
Funded through the UN Foundation and the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the pilot initiative will run until December 2021.
