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CORAFMOB Community Mobilization and Socio-Sanitary Stakes facing COVID-19
Institution
IRD (TransVIHMI) / CRCF Senegal / IRSS Burkina Faso
Country
Senegal, Burkina Faso
Localities
Dakar, Ziguinchor, Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso
Type of Study
Ethnographic study
Methodology
Qualitative
Key Focus of Study
In the strategy of WHO and national institutions for the response to COVID-19, community engagement is associated with risk communication. However, during previous epidemics (HIV, Ebola), civil society has played a much broader role, in particular through Community Based Organizations (CBOs), in: care, case investigation, monitoring of contact and suspect cases, psychosocial care for patients, advocacy, fight against stigma and for human rights, support for marginalized and vulnerable populations, etc., from the level of execution of activities to that of global governance. Community actors, members of CBOs or precarious health workers (volunteers, mediators or contract workers) have been on the front line with AIDS and Ebola patients. Outside and inside health facilities, they enabled epidemics to be controlled by a difficult and little recognized microsocial work of mediation and humanization, making unpopular biosecurity measures (secure burials, quarantine) acceptable. Their experience and knowledge anchored in West African socio-cultural contexts are essential to control the COVID-19 pandemic at the “community” level. However, the place given to them in response mechanisms does not sufficiently (or not yet) correspond to what they can bring to it. Community mobilizations against COVID-19 must be documented and analyzed to understand their potential contribution (and their limits) to all the pillars of the response.
Key Stakeholders
The comparative study of individual and collective mobilizations and their challenges in Burkina Faso and Senegal, two countries with different socio-political contexts and experiences of Ebola, informed by recent theoretical work on volunteering in Africa, will allow to discuss throughout the project points of convergence or divergence and new forms of collaboration between the community and health sectors with the aim of efficiency and confidence in the response to COVID-19.
Timeframe
June-October 2020
Funding Institution(s)
ANRS (French AIDS Agency)
Date data expected
September 2020
Status
Starting soon
More information contact
alice.desclaux@ird.fr
