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Cross Borders - Communication Focal Point Discussions

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Hi Everyone

Just wanted to give you an update and reminder about this meeting on July 7 at 05:30 Pacific Daylight Time (see the note we sent June 24 with the times in each time zone).  We will be joined by Godwin Mindra the acting team lead for Afghanistan, Kamal Shaw cross border communication focal point for Afghanistan, Ejaz Rehman the cross border communication focal point for Pakistan, and Shamsher Khan from the polio Hub.  We will be sending out a zoom call invite to all of you in the coming day or two.

As we prepare for the meeting I have resent the note below and attachments which had the following task:

After reviewing the attached notes can each of you share a list of questions you’d like to ask the country staff directly?  We will gather and collate these and develop an agenda for the call which can then finalise as a group.

We want to make sure we are able to share the agenda and list of questions with the country participants so they have time to reflect and consider before the meeting.  Hopefully, you can share your thoughts before the end of the week.

Looking forward to seeing all of you on the call.

Cheers

Chris

 

 As I mentioned I have had discussions with Kamal Shaw Sayed the Afghanistan cross border communication focal point and Ejaz Rehman his counterpart in Pakistan.  I also spoke with Shamsher Ali Khan from the Amman polio Hub who has been providing support to the countries to strengthen their cross border work and coordination.  With each of these discussions we focused on what they felt were the main cross border communication issues and gaps and the discussion starter document in terms of how well it captured the main issues.  I’ve attached notes from these discussions and have been promised further comments from Pakistan.

 To give you some highlights:

·       All agreed that cross border work has slipped over the past few years and needs to be restarted.

·       There was consensus that communication was not an integral part of the cross border work that was happening.

·       There was also recognition of multiple opportunities for communication to contribute to improving vaccination of populations straddling the border, crossing at formal and informal border points, reaching high risk mobile populations, and reaching more children in the areas these populations settled for periods of time.

·       There is currently discussion between the Hub and countries about setting up CB Working Groups to develop plans for each corridor.  These will include communication focal points.

·       Some areas they identified for improvement were better use of local media, data sharing on influencers and HRMP, improved IPC at borders and transit points, coordinated messaging along borders, improved understanding of attitudes towards vaccination and how they change as people move from one country to the other, better coordination between polio staff along the borders including sharing of information and engagement of resistant communities, and greater coordination between social media initiatives in both countries.

·       A number of other areas of concern with communication elements were also identified such as improving cooperation with law enforcement agencies (LEAs) along the border, the impact of the border fence on informal crossing (creating frustration as convenient crossing points are closed and dividing straddling communities), difficulties in accessing communities adjacent or straddling the border and cooperating to ensure joint problem solving and plans for engagement, building more cooperation and trust between front line polio staff along the border and within bordering districts.

 

There is more detail in the attached notes.

We are also planning to organise a conference call between you and the countries so you can discuss the issues first hand and ask the questions you feel are important.  This call will include the CB focal points as well as the country focal points assigned to the PTT.  We hope this will give us a better sense of the issues and areas of priority action as the countries see them and allow us to begin to zero in on practical suggestions.

Task: After reviewing the attached notes can each of you share a list of questions you’d like to ask the country staff directly?  We will gather and collate these and develop an agenda for the call which can then finalise as a group.

We do not have a time for the call yet but will try to pull it together in the next two weeks recognising that both countries have just been through campaigns and are still doing post-campaign assessment.  We’ll be sending a follow-up note shortly with a poll to determine the best date and time and some other admin and planning tasks.

Cheers

Chris

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Comments

Submitted by Sebastian Taylor on Mon, 07/05/2021 - 09:43 Permalink

Thanks Chris.  This is a very helpful outline of how we should aim to proceed. I'm putting (below) some questions I think would be worth considering, as part of our engagement with programme colleagues towards a PTT collective contribution.

I think there are some really interesting and potentially helpful tensions being raised - between the, as it were, mechanistic modes of programme characterisation of HRMP, and more textured ways of engaging with the realities of the lives of the people, families and communities incorporated under the 'HRMP' acronym. Also, some convergence around the idea of better, more human engagement with these groups - potentially shaping a more action-oriented approach to participant research methods rather than external definition and classification of complex lived realities, which seems to be a less effective way of creating genuine programme-community interaction.
Hope this helps. Look forward to others' thoughts.

PTT Questions, Seb

Implementation

What is the condition of communication, engagement and trust between the two country programmes on cross-border issues?

What do you think are the reasons for the long-term difficulty in achieving high-quality cross-border coordination?
 
Has there been a decline in cooperation/collaboration and a one-team/single epi bloc approach? What has caused this and what may be needed to restore the required intensive level of coordination?

Do you think 'coordination' is enough to ensure effective engagement with HRMP between the two programmes?

What are the different communication/engagement strategies and activities designed to improve vaccine coverage with:

- Border-area communities (straddling the border, including people using informal crossings)
- Families moving between countries at formal crossing points (Friendship, Torkham etc)
- Families settling in other country (e.g. Pakistani communities within Afghanistan) in unregistered communities
- Families/children residing as guests within settled households/communities in other country (e.g. Afghan families/children as guests in Pakistani households)?

To what extent do the programmes – Afghan and Pakistan – effectively communicate with HRMP families?

What are the main forms of communication with HRMP families? E.g. didactic messages vs target research/information gathering/analysis vs dialogue interaction and engagement
 
What do you think should be the difference between different HRMP communication strategies (e.g. didactic comms: messages about PEI/OPV, vaccine efficacy/safety, value of vaccination vs continuous local engagement, information-gathering, profile-building and Programme-Community confidence-building)? How should these approaches be differently designed?

To what extent do the programmes know where HRMP families acquire information/ credible information?  

Can the programmes demonstrate how they engage with locally-trusted information, communication and media sources used by HRMP?

To what extent do the programmes – on either side and in collaboration around the border – implement in meaningful local community engagement activities?

Who actually goes to these areas from the programmes? What kind of activities do they undertake? With what effects (measures of change in Programme-Community interaction, in family attitude or behaviour)?
         
To what extent do the programmes direct significant communication/community engagement resources to known areas of HRMP settlement within each country (that is, away from the border itself) – examples: transient groups in Rawalpindi, Jalalabad et al?

To what extent do the programmes communicate effectively with families hosting guest HRMP?

To what extent the programmes, in a conjoined way, are prepared for significant uplift in population movements across the border (in either direction) relating to current and prospective short- and long-run displacement pressures?

 

Programmatic

How much programme time/resource is dedicated to HRMP – is it appropriate to the scale of the risk HRMP present?

How are HRMP resources mainly used – what kinds of activities? What timeframe (e.g. during SIA mainly, between campaigns)?

How successful have HRMP strategies been in each country programme over the last e.g. 3 years – what objectives are measured (e.g. HRMP levels of awareness of PEI/OPV, willingness to be vaccinated, trust/lack of trust in PEI programme (or in wider authorities), rate and level (proportion) of adequately vaccinated HRMP children, rate and level (proportion) of missed children (including all reasons given); what evidence, using these measures, is available to show progress or lack of progress?  

Best Seb

Submitted by Sahar Hegazi on Mon, 07/05/2021 - 10:00 Permalink

Dear Seb and colleagues,

Thanks very much for the stimulating and quite important questions flagged by all. I have been avoiding interventions to remain as neutral as possible and to benefit as much as possible from the critical thinking offered by everyone. However, I felt it may be helpful to share some quick thoughts based on what we know as of today and data shared and put on the table a couple of questions:

What we know or could be inferred from data / notes so far shared are:

Cross boarders is getting a visible momentum due to current AFG security and political context. This attention will increase in the next few weeks.

There is a perception among some team members that focus on cross boarders will not directly contribute to achieving the eradication goal compared with due focus on campaign quality for example. Hence it is not a top priority (as long as it will not directly influence the interruption of virus circulation). Please note that one of the recent explanations for reduced virus circulation during 2021 in PAK and AFG is reduced mobility due to COVID.

This area of work has been mostly dominated by operational analysis and mechanics rather than the human side and its contribution to reaching each and every child through journey on both sides.(please refer to WHO slide set shared earlier with the background paper).

Based on the above, attention to dedicated cross boarders community engagement and / or communication has been the lowest of interest or priorities and specific interventions that are laser focused on mobile population groups are to my knowledge limited on the ground (please reference Kamal Shah / AFG feedback).

Some important suggestions and current opportunities have been shared / highlighted by focal points (please reference Ejaz and Kamal Shah feedback).

Both focal points for communication demonstrated and shared clear and common grounds for possible collaboration around community leaders engagement, some media…etc. and some interesting work was done before. However, was not sustained, nor assessed.

With resources being cut left right and center, this won’t probably be the top communication priority for resource allocation.

With the above said, and assuming the program is committed and both EOC leaderships have the desire to pursue this area, I would like to bounce back a couple of questions and would be interested to know your thoughts and if we should add or use for discussion on the 7th:
 

1. What are the 3 most significant bottlenecks hindering an effective and sustained cross boarders community engagement and communication area of work?

 2. Given the current reality, what is the minimum set of activities that both countries must consider? If we are in an ideal world, what would be the optimum set of interventions if such space exists?

3. In your view, how to reposition this area of work within the program to gain due attention and resources?

 

With many thanks,

Sahar