The challenges affecting health and well-being in the African Region require whole-of- society and whole-of- government action. Recognizing communities as an integral part of health systems, the region’s 47 Member States adopted the "Strengthening community protection and resilience: regional strategy for community engagement, 2023–2030", to build healthier and more resilient populations. The strategy centres on fostering trust and participation within communities, and points to behavioural sciences as means to inform effective policies and interventions.
The African Region faces a disproportionately high disease burden, recurring health emergencies, and worryingly low access to essential health services. The strategy sets out a way forward to engage communities in developing responsive and equitable policies, participating in planning and service provision, and adopting behaviours that have a positive impact on health outcomes.
Adopting a behavioural lens to inform actions
The community engagement strategy prioritizes among others research, monitoring, evaluation and using lessons to inform interventions. This includes generating evidence about the community and with the community and ensuring capacity within Ministries of Health for collecting behavioural insights or data to inform policies and plans. In particular, it urges Member States to integrate behavioural insights functions, engage behavioural and social scientists and work with academic institutions to generate context specific data and evidence.
This milestone achievement is the result of work by the Regional Office for Africa, together with the Behavioural Insights Unit at WHO headquarters, to increase and mainstream the use of behavioural sciences in the African Region’s health sector. Under the umbrella of the Behavioural Sciences for Better Health initiative, efforts undertaken until now have included working to facilitate collaboration, share knowledge, build capacity and demonstrate the potential of producing and using systematically context specific behavioural evidence.
“From the very beginning of the behavioural insights for better health initiative, we have worked closely with the WHO Regional Office for Africa, achieving results such as strengthened skills and capacity and the collection of Covid-19 social and behavioural data through a dedicated data collection tool,” said Elena Altieri, Behavioural Insights Head of Unit. “We’re thrilled to see this close collaboration result in mainstreaming behavioural sciences in the community engagement strategy for the region.”
Global resolution for behavioural sciences
The achievements in the African Region and inclusion of behavioural sciences in the recent community engagement strategy align with the global Behavioural Sciences for Better Health resolution (WHA 76.7) adopted earlier this year. The global resolution also recognizes behavioural sciences as essential to public health and urges Member States to boost evidence and capacity.
Dr Doris Kirigia, WHO Regional Office for Africa Health Promotion and Determinants of Health Team Lead who was among regional behavioural insights focal points who gathered for the first time in July 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland to synchronize strategies, priorities, and plans on behavioural science for health observed:
“I am resolutely inspired to champion the integration of behavioural science into public health practices within our own region,” said Dr Kirigia at the close of the meeting. “This not only promises effective solutions for the pressing health concerns affecting Africa but also offers a pathway to address health inequities rooted in intricate social, contextual, and political dynamics, while simultaneously fostering health promotion and community resilience in the face of recurring health emergencies.”
Work to support implementation of the African Region community engagement strategy and mainstream behavioural sciences in health systems is ongoing. This includes a 2-year project to support embedding Behavioural Insights into academic institutions, WHO country offices and Ministries of Health in in Burkina Faso, Namibia, and Zambia.
In addition to ongoing work in the African Region, the Behavioural Insights Unit is working closely across all other WHO Regional and Country offices to implement the global resolution.