Citizen Engagement Digital Tools: The Governance Gap Senegal Can No Longer Afford to Ignore Dakar’s population surpassed 3.9 million in 2024. Thiès, Ziguinchor, and Saint-Louis are growing at a similar velocity. As Senegal urbanizes at one of the fastest rates in West Africa, a structural paradox is deepening: the more citizens there are to serve, […]
Kenya Voter Education Campaign Kenya’s high-stakes elections often grapple with two critical issues: a flood of misinformation and alarmingly low youth voter engagement. During the 2022 polls, for example, false claims spread like wildfire, from wild animals supposedly on the loose to premature “victory” announcements for candidates. Such rumors, easily shared on social media, create […]
In Ethiopia’s ongoing humanitarian crises, marked by conflict, drought and mass displacement, organisations often lack reliable channels to hear directly from affected communities. As of 2024, 21.4 million people in Ethiopia need life-saving assistance. This includes roughly 4.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in dispersed camps and host communities. Recent conflicts have “left communities […]
Nigeria has faced numerous public health emergencies in recent years, from cholera outbreaks and annual Lassa fever surges to the COVID-19 pandemic. In each crisis, one lesson stands out: rapid, reliable communication can save lives. Yet traditional outbreak communication in Nigeria often struggles with fragmented channels, slow information flow, and misinformation. Health alerts may take […]
Imagine a government health department needing to send urgent SMS alerts to millions of citizens during an outbreak, or an NGO running an education campaign via WhatsApp across multiple regions. In these scenarios, reaching everyone quickly is non-negotiable. Yet all too often, traditional messaging platforms impose caps or high per-message fees that force public sector […]
Cholera outbreaks can emerge suddenly and spread rapidly in rural communities where surveillance is weak. In Burundi’s cholera-prone regions, delays in reporting new cases have resulted in significant lags in response. In 2016, local health authorities partnered with UNICEF to equip community health workers with an SMS-based alert system. RapidPro Burundi enabled frontline volunteers to […]
Collecting timely patient feedback is critical for improving healthcare, yet many clinics still rely on slow, paper-based surveys. In Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), it was common for patient satisfaction data to be collected weeks or months after a visit. Around 2018, UNICEF partnered with the Ministry of Health to pilot a game-changing solution: RapidPro Eswatini surveys […]
Zimbabwe’s severe drought and COVID-19 lockdowns created an urgent need for innovative nutrition surveillance. With travel restrictions in place, health authorities could no longer rely on in-person data gathering. In this context, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health turned to an SMS-based system, RapidPro, for rapid and remote nutrition data collection. Community health workers and clinic staff, who […]
Uganda’s rural health system relies on thousands of community health workers (CHWs) to reach remote villages. However, coordinating messages and data among these dispersed CHWs is a major challenge. Stockouts of medicines and slow communications can delay care. In Chad, for example, UNICEF and the Ministry of Health deployed SMS alerts using the open-source RapidPro […]
Chad faces a persistent nutrition supply challenge that puts children’s lives at risk. Severe acute malnutrition is widespread, yet remote clinics often run out of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) due to funding gaps, difficult terrain, and poor communication. In late 2024, UNICEF warned Chad was on the brink of running out of RUTF entirely, a […]
