Civil Society Organization Platforms Contribute to National Immunization Programs

"Only by working together in partnership will the objective of ensuring every child is reached with immunization be realized."

Civil society and civil society organisations (CSOs) are a key partner in Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. During the period 2011-2018, Gavi funded Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to establish and support civil society platforms for immunisation in 24 countries. This diverse group is made up of over 4,000 CSOs from around the world who are actively involved in working with governments to shape services, to reach communities that would otherwise be missed, and to counter the myths that make people hesitant to vaccinate their children. This document shares those platforms' best practices.

The resource includes:

• Innovations in community-level sensitisation and mobilisation for immunisation services;
• Lessons learned from 7 years of implementing the Gavi CSO Constituency Platforms Project; and
• Practical guidance on applying CSO promising practices in a particular country and context.

Following a list of acronymns and an introduction, contents include:

I. Coordination

• Data Collection, Reporting, and Use
  • Newborn tracking and vaccine registers | Ethiopia
  • Cross-border coordination on immunization | Horn of Africa
  • Using Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices surveys to inform behavior change strategies | Sierra Leone
  • Independent monitoring of immunization campaigns | South Sudan
  • Documenting the CSO impact on immunization | Burkina Faso
  • The Secretariat Model and global CSO engagement | Global
• Collaborations with Ministries of Health
  • Microplanning with the Ministry of Health at the sub-national level | Kenya
  • CSO-led introduction of new vaccines | Zambia
  • District Immunization Champions and Regional Nodes | Uganda
  • County Chapters | Kenya
  • Shadowing government immunization outreach workers | Pakistan
• Preventing and Responding to Disease Outbreaks
  • Community Early Warning Systems | Cameroon
  • Social behavior change in outbreak-prone communities | Burkina Faso
  • Immunization Surveillance Sites | Chad
  • Community-based polio surveillance | South Sudan
  • Community-based polio surveillance | Nigeria

II. Social Behavior Change

• Partnerships with Religious Leaders
  • Immunization Sundays | Kenya
  • Using religious scholars and texts to counter religion-based vaccine hesitancy | Pakistan
  • Churches engage as members of CSO platforms | Ethiopia
  • Religious leaders lead the development of behavior change messages | Sierra Leone
  • Imams address vaccine hesitancy during Iftar | Nigeria
• Male Engagement
  • Champion Papas | Togo
  • Barbers motivate fathers to participate in immunization programs | India
  • Fathers promote immunization | Pakistan
  • Male immunization champions | Madagascar
• Hard-to-Reach Populations
  • Fundamentalist religious women counter religion-based vaccine hesitancy | Guinea
  • Outreach to nomadic populations, internally-displaced people, and refugees | Kenya, Somalia
  • Women's groups reach nomadic communities during market days | Mali
  • CSO participation in the Reach Every Child campaign | Madagascar
  • The Social Mobilization Network | India
  • Increasing immunization coverage in urban slums | Pakistan
• Peer Outreach
  • School children educate their peers | India
  • Mother Care Groups | Malawi
  • Women micro-entrepreneurs promote immunization | Mali
  • Local human resources disseminate awareness-raising messages | Pakistan
  • Community dialogues | Liberia, Madagascar, Uganda

III. Stronger Community-Level Systems and Services

• Local Solutions to Healthcare Access
  • Community ownership of health centers | Pakistan
  • Increasing access to immunization in hard-to-reach areas | Zambia
  • Self-help health centers | Pakistan
• Community-led Health System Strengthening
  • Community-owned child registers | Uganda
  • Training community health volunteers | Chad
  • Village Health Committees | Pakistan
  • Nutrition volunteers promote immunization | Madagascar

IV. Advocacy

• Evidence-informed advocacy | Malawi
• National immunization champions | Nigeria
• Rights-based advocacy for health system strengthening | Madagascar