Soul Beat Africa
African development action with informed and engaged societies
Soul Beat Africa

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Communication for Polio Eradication in Niger

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Presented at: The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting on Communication for Polio Eradication

Date
Summary

This PowerPoint presentation was part of a November 2006 meeting hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) African Regional Office (AFRO) in Zimbabwe. At this meeting, country-specific presentations were made by communication practitioners in 5 countries which have experienced ongoing cases of wild polio virus (WPV) from 2005 to 2006. The objectives of the meeting included the following:

  1. To critically review country communication strategies and activities for polio eradication, routine immunisation and integrated expanded programme of immunisation (EPI)-polio action including progress in implementing the
    Yaounde 2005 TAG country recommendations.
  2. To develop the technical recommendations for each country which, when implemented, would improve polio and routine communication performance.
  3. To develop and propose communication indicators that can be effective in measuring the impact of communication strategies for improved polio eradication and expanded routine immunisation.


This presentation provided an overview of the epidemiological history in Niger, as well as the country-specific communication strategies and challenges. (This was presented in French, though we have also provided a translation of the full presentation in English below.)

From 2005 to March 2006, 20 cases of WPV were reported in Niger (10 cases in 2005, 10 cases in 2006). During that same period, the country has conducted eight rounds of polio supplementary immunisation activities (SIAs). Niger shares a long common border with Nigeria, another country addressing polio immunisation. The high-risk zones in Niger are known and have been mapped.

The communication environment of Niger includes significant mobility of the population, persistence of residual refusal cases, active involvement of Islamic Women Associations in the sensitisation of parents, inadequate financing of communication activities, weak involvement of health committees during routine vaccination and very low involvement of the private sector and businesses in vaccination activities.

Major challenges for 2006 were to maintain the country in a non-endemic status by reinforcing routine immunisation, improving the quality of polio SIAs, developing communication strategies to address high-risk zones and rendering functional communication structures at the community level.

Click here to download the original full PowerPoint presentation as a PDF file [in French].

Click here to download a translation of the full PowerPoint presentation as a PDF file [in English].