COVID-19 AWARENESS WEBINAR SERIES · through synergies and innovative ideas. 1 Early in March,...

COVID-19 AWARENESS WEBINAR SERIES#AfricaCSOsRespond

*Content

1. BACKGROUND & RATIONALE

2. MAIN OUTCOMES

2.1 Enlisting African Civil Society to the Forefront of the Pandemic

Response

2.3 Leveraging Technology and Social Media in the Pandemic

Response

2.4 Mobilizing Resources to Support the Pandemic Response

3. RECOMMENDATIONS AND WAY FORWARD

3.2 Government-Civil Society Partnership

3.3 Gender Integration

3.4 Regional Cooperation is Vital to the Pandemic Response

4. WEBINAR THEMES FOR THE NEXT REPORTING PERIOD &

WAY FORWARD

5. ANNEXES

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COVID-19 AWARENESS WEBINAR SERIES

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Early in March, AU-ECOSOCC started a webinar series with the African Development Bank’s Civil Society and Community Engagement Division to raise awareness about COVID-19

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As leading institutions for the development of the Continent, the African Union (AU) and the African Development Bank Group (the “Bank Group”) recognise the ability of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to position the interests of African citizens at the centre of its growth interventions.

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa, their respective dedicated organs/Departments, the AU Economic, Social and Cultural Council (AU-ECOSOCC) and African Development Bank’s Gender, Women and Civil Society Department (AfDB-AHGC) have initiated a webinar series to raise awareness, sensitize and educate African citizens and Civil Society at large about the pandemic, the necessary measures to take during this current pandemic and the associated public health guidance from the Africa Center for Diseases Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). These webinars also provide a platform to combat the spread of misinformation and for sharing lessons from the interventions that CSOs are undertaking at local and national levels to respond to the pandemic under extremely difficult conditions and drawing lessons on what is working and what more needs to be done to save lives and build community resilience. This partnership made it possible, from the first hours of the Response, to rally the forces of the two Institutions to aggregate citizens’ concerns, put them on the agenda and provide organizational, technical and material resources to CSOs, Donors, Diaspora and Policy Makers as well through synergies and innovative ideas.

1 Early in March, AU-ECOSOCC started with Awareness-raising sessions.

The first stage of the webinar series focused on the outbreak and the resultant emergency response, and addressed such themes as health and sanitation, information and misinformation, the frontline experiences of CSOs, resource mobilization, gender mainstreaming in the pandemic response, and the use of innovative technology and ICT in the context of Covid-19. As the continental response transitions from emergency response to long-term reconstruction, the next stage of the webinar series will similarly focus on themes central to the elaboration of new frameworks that will be required to facilitate recovery, build resilience, and adapt institutions and systems to the realities of post-COVID-19 socio-economics in Africa.

The sessions are powered by either a “Go to Meeting” or “Zoom” web-based platform with telecommuting, audio and video system integrating dual interpretation. The average duration is 90 minutes including formal presentations, dialogue and inter-active sessions facilitated by a Moderator.

This report covers a series of 5 weekly Webinars organized in April1 (Annex 1). It presents major achievements, aggregated audience statistics (Annex 2) and identifies lessons learned, experiences to be scaled up and avenues of advocacy to boost the citizen contribution to the COVID-19 pandemic response.

It is undeniable that this partnership between the two Institutions from the point of view of their respective community engagement will strengthen the restoration of trust between

1. BACKGROUND & RATIONALE

The world is faced with the unprecedented challenge of containing the Covid-19 pandemic and mitigating its devastating impact on people’s lives. Times such as these call for rapid decision-making, coupled with innovative and effective solutions to address a continually evolving web of challenges. Because they are the most at risk and disproportionately affected by the pandemic, local communities should be actively engaged and contribute in the building of solutions through people-centered approaches.


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Investing in and collaborating with civil society as a key development partner is critical.

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2. MAIN OUTCOMES The webinar series is primarily targeted at civil society organizations on the continent as well to policy-makers at the forefront of the pandemic response. Its primary goal is to mobilize civil society actors behind Africa’s emergency response and recovery effort, by disseminating and helping implement at community level the authoritative public health guidance issued by frontline continental institutions such as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

The webinar series has, thus far, generated a number of key takeaways for policy consideration, as highlighted below:

2.1 Enlisting African Civil Society to the Forefront of the Pandemic Response

Given the overwhelming nature of the emergency response and the inadequacy

of the national public health system in many instances to reach every segment of society that requires aid and support, civil society organizations on the continent must assume the role of caregivers of last resort. A pandemic that is present everywhere at the same time requires active and proactive responses not just from government but from every stakeholder group in society. As local structures that are embedded within local communities, civil society organizations are well placed to serve as extensions of the national response apparatus within local populations. In addition to disseminating verified public health information and sensitizing community members about the pandemic, CSOs have the comparative advantage of being able to mobilize and distribute basic supplies such as food, water, and sanitary items to local populations, including hard-to-reach areas, so that the community is able to shelter in place and observe lockdown measures and other mitigation efforts put in place by governments.

Focus 1. Value added of civil society engagementCSOs play a critical role in protecting poor and vulnerable communities, in times of crisis, improving the resilience of communities, supporting and growing the local economy, strengthening social cohesion and leading the path to recovery. An effective and all-inclusive response to this pandemic has to be people centered and the various institutions involved in the response has to seize this opportunity to explore new ways of engagement. It can no longer be business as usual, but rather an innovative approach to engagement with ensures the utmost reach to populations at the bottom of the pyramid. The efforts to combat this virus won’t work unless the approach is holistic.

Investing in and collaborating with civil society as a key development partner is critical.

Duty Bearers and Right Holders and strengthen community engagement in the post COVID19 reconstruction agenda.

Brief on AU-ECOSOCC: The mandate of the organ is to provide a platform for African Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to play an active role in contributing to the AU’s, policies and programs. The permanent Secretariat is now hosted in Lusaka, Zambia.Learn more at https://au.int/en/about/ecosocc

Brief on AfDB-AHGC2: The role of the Civil Society and Community Engagement Division is to mainstream Civil Society Engagement in the Bank’s operations and projects and to support the delivery of a People Centered High 5s. Learn more at https://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/topics/civil-society

2.2 Gender Integration into the Pandemic Response

It is crucial for policy-makers to invest in gender-disaggregated data in order to develop responses that reflect and address the diverse ways in which women are disproportionately impacted by the ongoing pandemic. Gender-responsive emergency responses, taking into consideration the differentiated impact of the pandemic on women and men, must be developed to address the urgent needs of women, including food security, health supplies, and protection. Governments have a duty to ensure that the COVID-19 outbreak does not ultimately aggravate other areas of vulnerability for women and girls, including women’s reproductive health, child marriages and domestic violence. While emergency support is required to respond to the immediate needs of women and girls impacted by the pandemic, it is equally critical to institute longer-term recovery measures aimed at restoring the livelihoods of women, through support to women-led micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). In this regard there needs to be specific allocations in the various response funds launched by national governments and international partners to support women-led CSOs and women-led businesses.

While women and girls are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, women are insufficiently represented in the leadership of the pandemic response around the continent. This reality is yet another expression of the general underrepresentation of women’s leadership in other sectors of society. One of the many policy lessons that must be drawn from this pandemic has to be a material emphasis on building and supporting women’s leadership and equitable representation in decision-making, including the appointment of women onto the task forces, committees and response mechanisms being deployed for the pandemic response.


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Focus 2. Gender-based violence (GBV). GBV increasingly appears to be a malignant by-product of the confinement and lockdown schemes instituted in many countries globally, including in Africa. CSOs have a critical role in ensuring that such instances are brought to light, and to partner with human rights institutions nationally and continentally in the areas of recording, reporting and protection. There needs to be investments from governments and development partners to strengthen protection from gender-based violence through concrete policy and administrative interventions. These must include the establishment of reporting hotlines; creating and/or expanding shelters; the provision of pyscho-social support for victims of gender-based violence, and the creation or strengthening of special victims’ units in police departments and the court systems.


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2.3 Leveraging Technology and Social Media in the Pandemic Response

The pandemic has brought into sharp relief the critical, and sometimes life-saving, role that information and communications technology (ICT) can play in emergency situations where entire populations are confined in place. With restrictions on movement, assembly and personal contact, citizens have had to resort to ICT platforms to access vital public health information, commune with family and friends, order food and basic supplies, and organize work meetings. At the same time, these benefits have not been equally distributed within the population in many countries given structural barriers such as the high cost of internet connectivity and the insufficient internet coverage across national territories. The experience of the COVID-19 outbreak must serve as a timely reminder to governments across the continent to invest extensively in ICT infrastructure, education and services.

One essential policy lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic that has been brought to the forefront of policy attention is the susceptibility of social media to be deployed for malign purposes, with particular reference to the spread of misinformation. To combat the scourge of misinformation government regulators must urgently partner with technology companies such as Facebook and Twitter to roll out fact-checking programs to identify, review and rate viral information on social media platforms. In addition, CSOs and governments should lobby, influence and pressure technology platforms to remove content that are blatantly false, harmful, or misleading; reduce the distribution of dubious content through the platform; and apply tags to viral content with additional information from fact-checking organizations so that the general public is better able to contextualize online information and achieve a better assessment of its veracity or authenticity.


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2.4 Mobilizing Resources to Support the Pandemic Response

The resource requirements for the coronavirus pandemic are uniquely overwhelming. Unlike previous pandemic outbreaks which have tended to affect a localized region on the continent (ebola, lassa fever, cholera etc); COVID-19 affects the whole continent, indeed the whole world, at the same time. This has tremendous consequences in low-resource contexts such as in Africa, given that domestic funding deficiencies are compounded by dwindling external support as donor countries redirect resources for their own internal emergency response.

To safeguard the continent’s economies from being driven into bankruptcy by the pandemic, therefore, it is of utmost importance that the chain of infection be broken. CSOs must, as a matter of critical importance, assume a central role in helping implement measures at the community level that arrest the spread of disease, through sharing of information on infection avoidance,

sensitization of communities to adhere to public health guidelines, and working with authorities at all levels to support mitigation measures. Given the all-encompassing nature of the pandemic, governments need to apply a holistic approach to resource mobilization, focusing not exclusively on financial inflows, but also technical, human, and in-kind resources.

Health-care workers at the frontlines of the pandemic response are the most valuable resource in any country and must therefore be prioritized for investment in terms of personal protective equipment. Similarly, the scientific community in each member state needs to be capacitated in order to generate public health advice for the good of the population, and to contribute to the search for vaccines and therapeutic remedies. For its part, civil society must partner with government to mobilize a corps of community outreach personnel to disseminate public health guidance, distribute emergency supplies, and support in data collection and case reporting at the grassroots level.

Focus 3. Experience Sharing: Tackling misinformation on COVID-19

Nelson Kwaje, a 28-year old man with a background in tech and peace-building, has made it his mission to combat misinformation through digital online platforms and digital media. Nelson is a Program Director for #DefyHateNow, a community organization based in South Sudan, with branches in Cameroon, Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia. Nelson helped to initiate the #211CHECK collective, which is a digital community of youth working in various fields who collaborate to fight misinformation and raise awareness on coronavirus prevention and protection, using the #COVID19SS hashtag. Their work exposes false facts, disputed and unfounded remedies or cures, doctored images and any and all pieces of information that could confuse and mislead the public. Thanks to their work, people are able to recognize fake news in online spaces and access verified information that they need to make decisions in their best interest and that of society as a whole.

Caption/Picture: Dr Makur, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Health in South Sudan using the Voice Post Blue Bicycle, a COVID19 community awareness initiative by South Sudanese youth – Voicepost.org


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3. RECOMMENDATIONS AND WAY FORWARD

3.1 Reinforcing Public Institutions

The COVID-19 outbreak has shown that a strong state infrastructure is critical to an effective response. The pandemic has shone a light on the essential role of the state; and highlighted the value not only of a strong public infrastructure but also a robust human resource base, in this case scientists and public health professionals with the technical knowhow to guide elected leaders in the development and implementation of effective policy responses. As member states transition from the emergency response phase to a more long-term recovery, it will be imperative to increase pandemic resilience through a thoughtful and holistic investment in state institutions at all levels of government through improvements in health infrastructure, technology, and most of all, human resource expertise.

3.2 Government-Civil Society Partnership

The pandemic has further demonstrated the benefits of public trust in government – and, conversely, the consequences of mistrust – in times of emergency. Government directives such as lockdowns and movement restrictions, no matter how well-reasoned or essential for the public good, will not achieve the right level of adherence within the society if the population does not sufficiently trust the political system to be just and credible and if citizens do not believe their elected leaders to be of good faith and acting in the public interest. Civil society has an integral role to play in helping grow public trust in public institutions by informing, educating, and sensitizing the population about government

policy, and governments can earn public trust and goodwill by expanding the space for civic and political discourse within society through unwavering engagement with civil society organizations. Of the diverse new partnerships that must emerge in the post-pandemic period in order to reposition societies to be more successful against future shocks, the partnership between governments and civil society remains among the most indispensable. Governments and civil society actors have a responsibility to establish new relationships, identify innovative models for collaboration, and earn trust with one another in order to construct a new partnership that is mutually reinforcing and in the best interest of the public.

3.3 Gender Integration

Given that pandemics are a recurring phenomenon (the COVID-19 outbreak is but one example, albeit a particularly devastating one), and knowing that pandemics, like other emergencies, tend to disproportionately impact women and girls, it is imperative that policy makers at all levels put women and girls at the center of both emergency preparedness and long-term recovery planning. In other words, gender should be part and parcel of scenario planning in the response and recovery effort, as opposed to the prevailing tendency to approach it as an add-on or afterthought. Integrating gender at the heart of the response provides a platform to build resilience against future shocks. As the COVID-19 outbreak eventually dies down and policymakers and the scientific community are able to embark on a forensic review of the continent’s response, a gendered perspective in the analysis of this pandemic will be critical to the ability of policymakers to draw the necessary lessons to improve outcomes and saves lives during future outbreaks.

Focus 4. The case for Resource MobilizationCOVID19 has triggered a funding crisis for CSOS/NGOs at a time resources are needed most. And yet the international humanitarian and development sector is itself rapidly facing a critical threat from this pandemic, due to funding constraints at the precise moment when the work of CSOs has become vitally important. Restricting the flow of resources to CSOs aside now would be catastrophic to their ability to respond to both the immediate and long-term crises going forward. However, this is also an opportunity to design and develop new financing solutions. A new Civil Society Engagement business model has never been more needed than now as the continent transitions from emergency response to shaping a more inclusive future.


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3.4 Regional Cooperation is Vital to the Pandemic Response The relentless spread of infection across Africa ranks the COVID-19 as the most grievous transnational public health threat that the continent has experienced in a generation. The interconnectedness of the different regions of the continent, as evidenced by robust cross-border trade and the relatively free circulation of people and goods, means that this pandemic cannot be defeated within individual nation states solely on the strength of their domestic response. A harmonized regional approach, anchored by the regional economic communities (RECs) is imperative to ensuring that countries are collaborating with one another, based on data and evidence, to implement mitigation and containment policies in a coordinated format that minimizes the spread of infection across borders. Given the exceptionally high transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus, national response strategies are a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve a timely eradication of the coronavirus. Regional cooperation should also apply to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) which undoubtedly have the ability to position the interests of the African citizens at the centre of development interventions. CSOs are widely acknowledged as pivotal

actors in ensuring participatory, transparent, accountable and sustainable measures in line with the humanitarian and development nexus. Engaging with Civil Society at the regional level remains critical as it means the people of Africa will effectively receive improved health, access water sanitation, hygiene care and continue to afford a dignified life amidst COVID19 as they prepare for shaping an inclusive future.

4. WEBINAR THEMES FOR THE NEXT REPORTING PERIOD & WAY FORWARDThe webinar series will continue on a bi-weekly schedule and will accompany the continent’s response to the pandemic as it transitions to the recovery and post-pandemic phases. Episodes will address diverse themes, including Accountability, Solidarity, Youth, Education, Health infrastructures, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA).


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5. ANNEXES

Annex 1: Sessions’ Titles, Dates and Speakers

COVID-19 AWARENESS WEBINAR SERIES / THEMES, DATES, SPEAKERS Episode Title Episode

DatePresenters (Names, Titles, Organizations)

IntroCivil Society Town Hall on the COVID-19 Pandemic March 20

• Dr. Serge Michel Kodom – Internal Physician, Pre-sident of Association Internationale des Médecins pour la promo tion de l’Éducation et la Santé en Afrique (AIMES-AFRIQUE), ECOSOCC Member

Africa’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic March 27

Dr. Benjamin Djoudalbaye

Head of Policy, Health Diplomacy,

Africa CDC (Video Message

1.Innovative CSO Interven-tions in the COVID-19 Pandemic Response

April 3Fatma Ben Rejeb – Chief Executive Officer, Pan-African Farmers’ Organization (PAFO)Hamzat Lawal – Founder, Connected Development (CODE)

2.Civil Society Response to Social & Economic Im-pact of COVID-19

April 10

Richard Ssewakiryanga – Former Presiding Officer of ECOSOCC; President, Uganda Network of NGOs.Gilles Yabi – Founder of WATHI, Citizen Think Tank of West Africa

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Fundraising and Re-source Mobilization for the COVID-19 Pandemic Response

April 17Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma – Deputy Director, Africa Centres for Disease Control and PreventionDr. Ahmed Chehbouni – President, Tensift Region Develop-ment Center (CDRT), Marrakech

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Gender Integration in the COVID-19 Response April 24

H.E. Bineta Diop – Africa Union Special Envoy for Women, Peace & SecurityAmel Hamza – Manager, Gender and Women Empower-ment Division at the AfDB Center (CDRT), MarrakechVictoria Maloka – Acting Director, Women and Gender De-velopment Directorate, African Union CommissionSimone Assa – Association of Women Lawyers of Cote D’Ivoire

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The Role of Technology and Social Media in the COVID-19 Pandemic Re-sponse.

April 30

Dr. Kane Cisse – President, The Africa Civil Society on the Information Society (ACSIS), Member of AU-ECOSOCCBalkissa Ide Siddo - Public Policy Manager, FACEBOOK AfricaNelson Kwaje – Programs @defyhatenow, Team Lead @21CHECK


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Annexe 2. Aggregated Audience of the 5 Webinars

Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Pre-Event Promotion

59,888 impressions

1,285 post clicks

916 reactions, comments, shares

30,536 impressions

585 clicks

328 reactions

167,365 impressions

3,646 engagements (clicks, likes, comments, RTs)

Event Live Tweeting

30,097 impressions

611 post clicks

406 reactions, comments, shares

217,234 impressions

2,018 engagements (clicks, likes, comments, RTs)


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Designed by Communication and External Relations Department @2020

COVID-19 AWARENESS WEBINAR SERIES · through synergies and innovative ideas. 1 Early in March,...

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