June 2024 — Effective RCCE plays a crucial role in health emergency response by supporting affected individuals in making informed decisions, managing risks, and addressing their evolving needs and priorities. The importance of RCCE in outbreak response in East and Southern Africa (ESAR) has been increasingly recognized in recent years, especially following preparedness efforts during the 2018 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent emergencies and humanitarian crises. The regional RCCE activities are shifting towards a more coordinated approach, prioritizing leadership of affected communities and systematic engagement to address their concerns. This is achieved through the collection and analysis of social and behavioural data obtained from community feedback mechanisms, qualitative and quantitative research activities, and a combination of online/digital and offline data sources. 

The RCCE Technical Working Group (RCCE TWG) in East and Southern Africa, co-led by UNICEF and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), has been assisting in regional public health emergency response since 2020. A need to enhance cross-border collaboration in RCCE was identified by the RCCE TWG partners, with a focus on improving the collection, sharing, and utilization of community data for more effective responses. To address these recommendations, UNICEF ESARO, in collaboration with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), IFRC, WHO and UK-Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) as well as other partners, organized a simulation-based training in Mombasa, Kenya from April 15th to 19th, 2024, with the goal of enhancing cross-border collaboration and utilizing RCCE data during outbreaks and climate-related disasters. 

A specialized scenario-based training program was developed to address key aspects such as coordination, assessments, community feedback, rapid social science, community engagement, and monitoring, evaluation, and learning. The training was successfully conducted for participants from the Ministry of Health, Red Cross/Crescent National Society, UNICEF, and WHO across 7 African countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. The training focused on how to gather and use social and behavioural data to inform preparedness and response, with scenarios to injected throughout to put participants new skills to the test and foster interaction within and between the participating countries. Additionally, the training illustrated the many ways that social and behaviour data can be used to inform emergency operations and how communities should be involved in the design and implementation of these across pillars (e.g., surveillance, contact tracing, case management).

Key findings and learning from the workshop include:

• It is imperative to integrate RCCE as a cross-cutting approach within response efforts.

• The use of social data for evidence-based decision-making should be normalized and leveraged across all pillars of a response.

• The context-tailored learning content was essential to the success of the training.

• More opportunities for cross-border experience sharing are needed.

On the final day of the training, countries made a series of cross-border commitments to enhance the coordination of RCCE for outbreak preparedness and response. An agreement was reached among all participants to collectively execute the cross-border commitments and national action plans within the next 12 months, with technical assistance for this from the organizing partners. Participants expressed continued dedication to exploring new and innovative ways of working together to effectively address outbreaks, with a focus on empowering affected communities.

The full training report and accompanying case study are available online for more information on the training content and outcomes.