Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on GPEI: Global Consultation

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) held a global online consultation for communication for development (C4D) staff and others on the impact of COVID-19 on their work, including door-to-door immunisation activities. The context is that the Polio Oversight Board pledged to make polio assets available for the COVID-19 response at global, regional, and local levels. What would this decision, and the accompanying postponement of preventive polio campaigns until the second half of 2020, mean for the GPEI?

It was this question that drew 181 participants (C4D staff, Stop Transmission of Polio (STOP) consultants, and some GPEI partners) and 15 panelists from 58 countries to the consultation. Its objectives were to: (i) reconnect with and support field teams, (ii) ascertain the impact on GPEI operations and sketch out involvement of polio communication teams in COVID-19 response in selected countries, (iii) introduce the teams to available and emerging COVID-19 C4D resources, and (iv) identify technical areas of further C4D support.

As the webinar recording and slides, available below, detail, the session covers:

• Impact of COVID-19 on polio eradication: Update from GPEI leadership;
• Efforts to deal with distancing and quarantine: Implications for community engagement, house-to-house campaigns, and shift to digital;
• Protection of frontline workers ("duty of care" and "do no harm"): Capacity, training, and resources needs;
• Opportunities to strengthen polio and the vaccine-preventable disease (VPD) immunisation agenda;
• Country experiences: Mali, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan (along with the C4D COVID-19 surge mission to China);
• COVID-19 global risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) strategy;
• Global C4D resources and tools for COVID-19 response (linked to within the webinar slides - see below); and
• Moderated discussion

During the latter portion of the consultation (verbal discussion), as well as using the chat feature, participants provided insights through polls. Some of the key findings:

• Staff are personally affected by the emergency, with the majority feeling concerned, challenged, or uncertain about the situation and in need of support - in particular, in the following areas (in order of priority):
  • Community engagement techniques in the context of social distancing
  • Safety and care for frontline workers - standards, protocols, care, and training
  • Strategies for breaking through the COVID-19-dominated public and media discourse
  • Ways of combatting misinformation in digital platforms
  • Rapid social research and tools to collect data.
• Professionally, this situation is in many ways "uncharted territory"; thus, there is appreciation for continued technical engagement, interaction, and learning as things unfold.
• There is already an abundance of local knowledge and ad-hoc solutions that field teams are developing as they respond in communities; however, they await guidance and global standards.

The GPEI notes that an overarching and recurring theme of the discussion was the experience of physical (social) distancing and quarantine in the low-income, resource-deprived, and humanitarian context of Africa and Asia. This situation will require the GPEI to work with country teams to adapt, prototype, and co-create viable strategies.