NOVEMBER 2021 - In ESAR, a joint initiative co-led by UNICEF, IFRC and WHO is working to strengthen regional and country RCCE capacity to respond to public health emergencies (PHE), including through developing and strengthening community feedback mechanisms and advocacy for the value of collecting and using social science data to inform contextualized RCCE interventions at national and subnational levels.

Following a previous regional Social Science training of over 80 practitioners from 14 ESAR countries in April and May 2021, the Collective Service is now prioritizing working directly with countries to rollout country-level trainings and support social science and RCCE activities.

After presenting the menu of social science support services available by the regional Collective Service, several countries indicated their interest in a remote country-specific social science training.

The first of these trainings on Social Science in Health Emergencies took place in October 2021 in Malawi, building on a needs assessment completed with the RCCE Technical Working Group (TWG). The training was co-organized with the national RCCE TWG, consisting of the Ministry of Health and national and international NGOs and UN.

At the end of the three-session training, participants undertook a group exercise to use their skills to design social science research in a scenario of responding to a PHE in Malawi. They considered who they would engage, what funding opportunities might exist, what approaches and data collection techniques they would use, who their participants would be and how they would engage them, and how the results of their research would be used to design RCCE activities at the community level.

The training was highly popular with over 140 joining and pre- and post-training polls showed an increase in understanding about social science.

The Collective Service will be working with the RCCE regional TWG to present their social science and PHE case study to other countries in the region and in addition to supporting to develop a mechanism for collecting and responding to community feedback data.

Further Social Science trainings are set to take place with Eritrea and Zimbabwe in the coming weeks.