Pilot Countries Research Articles

The Icehearts Europe Implementation Guide to promote a mentoring programme for youth mental health

Abstract Issue/problem In Europe, 9 million young people (10-19) suffer from mental disorders and 70% of children and adolescents with mental health problems do not receive appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age. Moreover, during the Covid-19 pandemic a high prevalence of depressive symptoms, anxiety and sleep disorders was observed in the population aged 4-19 years. The Icehearts Europe project (funding: EU4Health 2022 Programme) aims to disseminate at EU level a long-term programme for supporting health and wellbeing of disadvantaged children and adolescents. It is inspired by the Finnish best practice Icehearts, a 12-year long mentoring programme. Five pilot countries (Italy, Denmark, Spain, Slovenia, Estonia) will test the model to raise European awareness of how it works and to get more countries and organisations involved. Description of the problem Icehearts Europe is a preventive mentoring programme based on team sports, recreation and school support activities, with a child-centred community approach. To facilitate its implementation, a practical guide has been developed for grassroots sport and social promotion organisations to help them implement the model in their own contexts. The guide is the result of both a multisectoral cooperation between grassroots sport, health, universities, NGOs, and qualitative study activities (bibliographic research, study visit, group work, analysis of the situation and needs of local contexts). Results From February 2024 the Icehearts Europe Implementation Guide is available in six languages at https://www.icehearts.eu/resources. It is now being adapted by the Icehearts Europe partners into an online training programme for managers. Lessons The guide has incorporated lessons learnt from the Finnish model, considered as an evidence-based approach. It contains several operational tools to implement Icehearts Europe and can be adopted using different approaches: there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Key messages • Developed as a support to the Icehearts Europe piloting partners and as a basis for a fully-fledged online training programme for future Icehearts Europe managers. • To facilitate the implementation of early interventions to promote health and wellbeing of children and adolescents and enable them to cope with disadvantaged conditions.

The vital role of stakeholders and National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs)

Abstract To successfully implement comprehensive, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, collaborative, cross-sectoral policy and strategies are essential. This is critical not only for addressing shared challenges but also for developing effective intervention strategies. One of the main hurdles in any collective action initiative is the ability to galvanize diverse stakeholders, each with their unique set of interests and capacity. EUVABECO is dedicated to conducting pilots, and developing implementation plans that are not only effective but also adaptable and sustainable across various healthcare settings in Europe. The healthcare environments across the pilot countries exhibit considerable variability, including differences in epidemiological trends, immunization information systems, vaccine nomenclature, and the dynamics of collaboration with National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs). Throughout implementation, the cooperation between these diverse stakeholders and NITAGs will be crucial, notably to share local vaccination policies for integration into the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system. EUVABECO’s goal is to craft implementation plans that are flexible enough to be tailored to local needs, ensuring that interventions are both practical and effective in each unique context. This presentation will explore the vital role that stakeholders and NITAGs play in this process, highlighting the importance of their involvement for the success of EUVABECO’s initiatives.

Validated translation of telehealth and health app usability questionnaires to 8 European languages

Abstract International projects such as the Joint Action on strengthening eHealth including telemedicine and remote monitoring for health care systems for cancer prevention and care (eCAN) are implemented in countries with different languages, requiring validation of translations of standardized tools. Evaluation frameworks for telemedicine services necessarily include the patient’s perspective, i.a. on the service usability. Due to the lack of validated questionnaires in multiple European languages we sought to develop translation for the languages of the eCAN pilot countries. Based on literature review, we selected mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) and Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) and developed a conceptual definition for each item. Next, we performed forward and back translation from English into the target languages, expert review, cognitive interview (CI) with 5-10 cancer or chronic disease patients per language/per questionnaire. Qualitative CI results were scored by 2 independent researchers for consistence of each item with conceptual definitions for final review by native speaker expert. We chose 8 languages (ES, GR, HU, IT, LT, NL, PT, SI) for validation. CI involved 48 respondents (29 females, 60%; 18 aged>60, 38%;23 higher education, 48%) for TUQ and 48 (22 females, 46%; 16 aged>60, 33%; 23 higher education, 48%) for MAUQ. Overall 872 (87%) of TUQ and 728 (84%) of MAUQ item answers were classified as consistent. In more than one language we identified concepts difficult to understand: consistent navigation when moving between screens, distinction between easy to use/learn, social settings. The validation process allowed us to identify opportunities to improve translation and highlighted concepts generally more difficult to understand. We provided validated translation of MAUQ and TUQ in 8 European languages for use in eCAN pilots and future telemedicine evaluation studies. Key messages • eCAN successfully validated translations of telemedicine usability questionnaires for 8 languages. • Multilingual translation validation can provide insights into concepts difficult across languages.

Why building participatory dashboards is key for sustainable food system transformation

In recent years, numerous examples of food system dashboards have been developed with the goal of offering users the opportunity to monitor or assess (their) national food systems. One of the many challenges faced by these initiatives has been to strike an acceptable balance between the complexity, local-specificity, and multi-sectoral nature of these food systems while also ensuring that the information remains accessible and usable for decision-makers. Perhaps even more critical, yet rarely discussed or implemented in most of the current food system dashboard initiatives, is the imperative of co-constructing these initiatives with local stakeholders. The case presented in this study puts participation at the center of the design and construction of a food systems’ monitoring dashboard. Using a replicable yet rigorous methodology, we demonstrate the feasibility of co-creating food system dashboards that integrate comprehensive and multi-sectoral inputs from national stakeholders while ensuring these dashboards are functional, evidence-based, and reflective of the country’s specific features. The approach is illustrated with the empirical cases of three pilot countries within the low-and middle-income countries group (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Honduras), where the methodology was tested between 2021 and 2022. We conclude by succinctly examining the ongoing challenges in constructing actionable food system dashboards.

Governing Complexity in Complex Times: The HDP Nexus and the Role of the UN, the EU and the World Bank

ABSTRACT Based on the work conducted with a Nexus-centred network of scholars and practitioners (HDP LAB SYNEX4 Future), an overview is offered of the literature on regime complexity to analyse origins and evolution of the Triple Nexus multilateral approach to the governance of compound humanitarian-development-security crises. The identification of the main institutional features of the UN-orchestrated Nexus policy concept highlights its potential as an innovative attempt at global experimentalist governance. This analysis of the nexus-based approach of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and the World Bank Group (WBG) in three pilot countries – Cameroon, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – demonstrates that, while coordination has increased, the agency of local communities remains limited and major impediments hinder the inclusion of the peace dimension, an area where separate initiatives by non-Western regional organisations have also stalled. Progress will necessarily depend on the ability of Nexus actors to develop its bottom-up and participatory components, and to improve coordination within the group of like-minded donors who share a clear commitment to a human rights-based, inclusive and prosperous future.

Advancing inclusive research (AIR) in Africa: Strengthening healthcare systems to enhance access on the continent through the Africa AIR site alliance model.

e13778 Background: While Africa makes up 17% of the total world population, it has 24% of the global disease burden. Furthermore, although Africa is rich in genomic diversity, Africans make up <4% of the patients in global pharma studies and 1% of the global genomic database. In 2020 there were only 63 African patients in Roche global clinical trials. The Africa AIR Site Alliance model was undertaken to address the growing importance of interventional clinical trials with advanced diagnostics and therapies in Africa, as well as the lack of representation of the African population in global datasets, which contribute to continued health disparities, poor outcomes and existing inequities. Methods: In countries with a legal research framework, no clinical trial holds and who have conducted at least 1 Roche clinical trial during the last 5 years potential Centers of Excellence for the Africa AIR Site Alliance were identified. For patients, sites had invoiceable services to ensure they were supported and could potentially include education about clinical trial participation, reasonable travel and accommodation, or covering the cost of missed work or childcare. Sites participated in training on how to conduct clinical trials, including opportunities to share best practices across sites. Results: Four pilot countries were selected and had Centers of Excellence identified to work as partners with Roche for global clinical trials: Morocco (Marrakech University Hospital Center), Nigeria (University College Hospital Ibadan), Kenya (University of Nairobi Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases) and South Africa (Limpopo Cancer Research Institute). After entering the Africa AIR Site Alliance, sites reported consistent application of standard operating procedures and manuals, trained and empowered staff, increased organization and appropriate patient support, plus knowledge and experience with industry trials. Sites are successfully participating in an increased number of global clinical trials in various therapeutic areas with 23 patients enrolled at the Africa AIR Site Alliance sites in oncology and ophthalmology studies. Conclusions: The Africa AIR Site Alliance model is a groundbreaking initiative that has the potential to revolutionize clinical research in Africa with a positive long-term impact on the African healthcare ecosystem and clinical care delivery. Limited diversity and representation in genomic, safety and efficacy data have hampered scientific and medical progress on the continent. The Africa AIR Site Alliance provides critical support, knowledge and skills for conducting clinical trials and assists in removing barriers for underrepresented patients to participate in these trials. Future work will focus on expanding to additional countries in Africa and creating a robust network of Centers of Excellence for innovative research.

Strengthening and utilizing response groups for emergencies flagship: a narrative review of the roll out process and lessons from the first year of implementation.

The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO/AFRO) faces members who encounter annual disease epidemics and natural disasters that necessitate immediate deployment and a trained health workforce to respond. The gaps in this regard, further exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, led to conceptualizing the Strengthening and Utilizing Response Group for Emergencies (SURGE) flagship in 2021. This study aimed to present the experience of the WHO/AFRO in the stepwise roll-out process and the outcome, as well as to elucidate the lessons learned across the pilot countries throughout the first year of implementation. The details of the roll-out process and outcome were obtained through information and data extraction from planning and operational documents, while further anonymized feedback on various thematic areas was received from stakeholders through key informant interviews with 60 core actors using open-ended questionnaires. In total, 15 out of the 47 countries in WHO/AFRO are currently implementing the initiative, with a total of 1,278 trained and validated African Volunteers Health Corps-Strengthening and Utilizing Response Groups for Emergencies (AVoHC-SURGE) members in the first year. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the highest number (214) of trained AVoHC-SURGE members. The high level of advocacy, the multi-sectoral-disciplinary approach in the selection process, the adoption of the one-health approach, and the uniqueness of the training methodology are among the best practices applauded by the respondents. At the same time, financial constraints were the most reported challenge, with ongoing strategies to resolve them as required. Six countries, namely Botswana, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Togo, have started benefiting from their trained AVoHC-SURGE members locally, while responders from Botswana and Rwanda were deployed internationally to curtail the recent outbreaks of cholera in Malawi and Kenya.

Assessing the Implementation Determinants of Pilot Malaria Vaccination Programs in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi through a Complexity Lens: A Rapid Review Using a Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.

In 2019, national immunization programs in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi commenced the implementation of RTS,S/AS01 vaccination in large-scale pilot schemes. Understanding the implementation context of this malaria vaccination in the pilot countries can provide useful insights for enhancing implementation outcomes in new countries. There has not yet been a proper synthesis of the implementation determinants of malaria vaccination programs. A rapid review was conducted to identify the implementation determinants of the pilot malaria vaccination programs in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi, and describe the mechanism by which these determinants interact with each other. A literature search was conducted in November 2023 in PubMed and Google Scholar to identify those studies that described the factors affecting malaria vaccine implementation in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi. Thirteen studies conducted between 2021 and 2023 were included. A total of 62 implementation determinants of malaria vaccination across all five domains of the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR) were identified. A causal loop diagram showed that these factors are interconnected and interrelated, identifying nine reinforcing loops and two balancing loops. As additional countries in Africa prepare for a malaria vaccine roll-out, it is pertinent to ensure that they have access to adequate information about the implementation context of countries that are already implementing malaria vaccination programs so that they understand the potential barriers and facilitators. This information can be used to inform context-specific systems enhancement to maximize implementation success. Going forward, primary implementation studies that incorporate the causal loop diagram should be integrated into the malaria vaccine implementation program to enable immunization program managers and other key stakeholders to identify and respond to emerging implementation barriers in a timely and systematic manner, to improve overall implementation performance.

6.I. Workshop: Assessing health system resilience to future shocks: a new tool for policy making

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of health system resilience, the ability of a health system to prepare for, manage and learn from a shock. Other recent adverse events, such as economic crises, conflict, migration and extreme weather have demonstrated how a wide range of shocks can challenge health systems. Health systems vary in their ability to respond to shocks and other challenges, mitigate adverse impacts, and learn from previous experience. While emergency preparedness and planning is a well established component of health system governance in many countries, no methodology currently exists to systematically test the resilience of a health system to a broad range of shocks. In this workshop, the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (OBS) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) share learnings from an ongoing project with the European Commission (EC) to help EU Member States assess and understand the resilience of their health system to a wide range of future shocks. The resilience testing methodology draws on two conceptual frameworks: the Health System Performance Assessment Framework for Universal Health Coverage (HSPA Framework for UHC) and the Shock Cycle. A specific shock scenario is chosen from a broad range of possible shocks to hypothetically challenge a given health system to its limits. This highlights key structural strengths and weaknesses of the health system. The country-led process culminates in a resilience test workshop that brings together policy makers, civil servants and other relevant experts. The test day is supported by an expert facilitator and research team, who provide background knowledge and structure the test day. Results of the resilience test include an understanding of the health system strengths and vulnerabilities specific to the shock. The test day may also anticipate spill-overs effects to other health system functions, and contribute towards a participatory approach to improve preparedness going forward. The objectives of the workshop are to: - present the new methodology for resilience testing; - showcase country examples that have piloted the methodology; - engage workshop participants in discussion towards a common approach to health system resilience strengthening. The workshop consists of presentations (40 minutes) and audience interaction (20 minutes). The presentations will cover the methodology, pilot countries’ experience, and an EU view of the resilience testing process. The audience interaction will consist of moderated discussion with an element of a digital feedback and Q&A (if settings allow). Discussion will reflect on usability, potential adaptations to suit various national settings, and operationalisation for policy makers so that countries can prepare more systematically for future shocks and long-term challenges. Key messages • Resilience testing is a novel and systematic method to engage policy makers, understand health system vulnerabilities and identify weaknesses requiring action. • Country-led pilots show that shock scenarios can be employed to reveal structural vulnerabilities, which can be addressed to enhance health system resilience.

Fair work in South Africa's gig economy: A journey of engaged scholarship

Because of its relatively well-developed, highly urbanised economy and high penetration of mobile internet access, the platform economy took off quickly in South Africa, with international players vying for market share and local platforms pursuing more innovative approaches. Digital labour platforms have offered new earning opportunities to many in the country, but concerns have been raised about the quality of jobs created, and whether they meet standards of decent work. South Africa was one of the pilot countries for the Fairwork Project. This article describes the specific conditions which supported the take-off of location-based digital labour platforms in South Africa, explains the methodology used for pursuing the Fairwork research, discusses ratings outcomes based on the empirical research and summarizes the action research component of the project—with particular attention paid to outcomes for workers. We also list some of the lessons that were learnt and give a critical reflection on the project in the hope of assisting other researchers investigating the fourth industrial revolution, the gig economy, and decent work standards, especially in the Global South.

Mobile Money and the importance of timely, complete payments to frontline health campaign workers in the fight to eradicate polio: pilot experience from a World Health Organization digital payment platform in Africa

BackgroundIn response to the increase in vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and many other African countries from 2017 to 2019, concentrated efforts are needed to improve the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. Frontline polio health campaign worker engagement and job retention are critical to successful campaign implementation, as well as timely, in-full payment to these workers via an electronic system.MethodsThe Global Polio Eradication Initiative and its partners designed a road map to implement the World Health Organization Mobile Money digital payment system for health campaign workers across designated African Region countries and country-specific areas. The road map included: (1) strategy communication about Mobile Money to key stakeholders; (2) prioritization of Mobile Money pilot countries; (3) establishment of a digital finance team to support Mobile Money rollout for polio campaigns; (4) implementation of Mobile Money in select pilot areas; and (5) documentation by the digital finance team of Mobile Money implementation across pilot areas. At the country-specific level, and as described in the first pilot campaign in Côte d’Ivoire, implementation of Mobile Money occurred in 3 phases: precampaign, campaign, and postcampaign.ResultsMobile Money was piloted in Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, and Republic of the Congo. Although program reach varied by country, the percentages of payments successfully made via Mobile Money in pilot countries were high: In campaign round 1, 99% of campaign workers in 2 regions in Mali, and 99% of campaign workers in 5 districts in Ghana were paid successfully. In Cote d’Ivoire, Mobile Money was piloted in all 113 districts for campaign rounds 1, 2 and 3, and in 4 districts in Abidjan for campaign round 3. In rounds 1, 2 and 3, 99.6%, 99.6%, and 99.9% of payments to polio health campaign workers, respectively, were made successfully.ConclusionImplementation of the Mobile Money pilot program, particularly across Côte d’Ivoire, demonstrates the value of an electronic payment system in addressing frontline polio health campaign worker need for timely, in-full payment. The World Health Organization-led Mobile Money pilot program can serve as a model for agencies committed to delivering greater efficiencies and improved health campaigns in resource-challenged settings.

Joko Widodo Views on Women's Interests Before and During the Pandemic Based on Social-Media

The COVID-19 Pandemic has had many impacts on Indonesian women. As one of the pilot countries for the HeForShe project campaigned by UN Women, it is interesting to analyze how the President of Indonesia responds to this phenomenon. Many studies focus on the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on women. But, there is a lack of research on how the government responds to women's interests during the Pandemic compared to the situation before the Pandemic. Using a qualitative approach, this study analyses how the President of Indonesia views women's interests before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Two official social-media of the President of Republic Indonesia Joko Widodo: The Official Twitter Account of the President of Indonesia @jokowi and The Official Facebook Account of The President of Indonesia @Jokowi · Minat are used as the primary data sources. The findings indicate that before the COVID-19 Pandemic, President Joko Widodo gave significant attention to strategic women's interests such as subordination and gender equality. But the situation changed during the Pandemic. The President views the fulfillment of daily needs such as food and health as more urgent for women in the COVID-19 Pandemic than strategic interests. This study highlights that in a crisis, the focus of the government policy is safe for the people first (women and men) to fulfill their basic needs. The gender equality agenda is becoming marginalized.

Using Red List Indices to monitor extinction risk at national scales

AbstractThe Red List Index (RLI) measures change in the aggregate extinction risk of species. It is a key indicator for tracking progress toward nine of the Aichi and many proposed post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework Targets. Here, we consider two formulations of the RLI used for reporting biodiversity trends at national scales. Disaggregated global RLIs measure changing national contributions to global extinction risk and are currently based on five taxonomic groups, while national RLIs measure changing national extinction risk and are based on taxonomic groups assessed multiple times in country. For 74% of nations, the disaggregated global RLI is currently based on three or fewer taxonomic groups. Meanwhile, national RLIs from selected pilot countries Finland, South Africa, and Brazil are computed from twelve, eight, and nine taxonomic groups, respectively. The national RLI and the disaggregated global RLI measure different aspects of biodiversity, in that the former detects national trends in populations of species for which each country is responsible while the latter provides standardized comparisons of nations' contributions to the global extinction risk of the same species groups. As governments commit to the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, we encourage them to monitor a standard set of taxonomic groups representing different biomes using both RLI formulations to ensure effective target tracking and accurate feedback on their conservation investments.

The FAO-UN Women partnership to support countries in producing sex-disaggregated data on agricultural landownership: SDG indicator 5.a.1

At the beginning of 2021, the global SDG database contained values of the indicator 5.a.11 for only 10 countries. To address this gap, UN Women and FAO launched a concerted effort to accelerate national reporting on the indicators through a multi-pronged strategy. Starting in mid-2021, the initiative supported 10 pilot countries in Asia, the Pacific and Latin America to assess their data systems and determine the suitability of existing data collection vehicles for gathering the required data. The ultimate objective was to integrate an appropriately designed short module in an ongoing national survey in a large number of countries. In addition, the FAO-UN Women initiative developed methods for generating proxy measures from internationally-supported national surveys that gather information on agricultural land ownership but not sufficient enough to estimate 5.a.1 according to the internationally agreed methodology endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. This exercise provided new initial estimates for use in global reporting for 23 countries. This paper describes the FAO-UN Women efforts, demonstrating how they have increased the capacity of national statistical systems to collect data for estimating 5.a.1. The paper offers recommendations on how existing surveys and agricultural censuses can integrate the necessary data to accurately produce indicator 5.a.1, drawing from the technical results of the work with pilot countries.

Evaluating the scaling potential of sustainable land management projects in the Sahelian Great Green Wall countries

The Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative aims at combatting land degradation while achieving socio-economic development across the Sahel through a mosaic of sustainable land management (SLM) and restoration practices. As the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the main funding mechanism for land degradation neutrality related projects, we have analyzed its previous SLM projects in four pilot countries in an effort to assess their capacity to foster scaling of interventions and fast track progress towards the GGW objectives. We developed a literature-based scaling evaluation framework and scoring methods to harmonize the GEF agency based project ratings in terms of performance and persistence along seven evaluation domains. We found that projects perform better over time particularly in terms of monitoring, financing and resilience to shocks but are overall only moderately likely to achieve benefits persistent over time, which is necessary to allow for the scaling of interventions. While these efforts should be maintained and further pursued, we also recommend special attention to be placed on a number of interventions that are often less successful or ignored by projects such as enforcing mechanisms for new SLM regulations, empowering vulnerable groups and ensuring sufficient capacity and finances for sustaining achievements even during periods of political or climatic instability.

Adaptive Learning Supported by Learning Analytics for Student Teachers’ Personalized Training during in-School Practices

This paper presents the results of the second phase of the international project “Improving Educational Innovation, Competitiveness, and Quality of Higher Education through Collaboration between University and Companies (EKT)”. The use of adaptive learning supported by learning analytics is proposed as a pedagogical strategy to work on the collaborative and personalized learning process that takes place during the school placement period of initial teacher education. Learning analytics is expected to facilitate the analysis of the different sources of information and data generated in the learning process. The collected data will be centralized in a learning record store (LRS), which will serve as a repository for xAPI compatible traces from the tools that make up EKT intelligent system. The system is expected to provide a strong support to decision-making so that participant agents can collaborate, advise, and contribute to the future teacher’s personalized training according to his or her progress and the context in which the practice takes place. The need analysis of tutors in the five pilot countries is presented, which has made it possible to define the process variables that make up the learning analysis architecture of the EKT system.

Understanding Change in International Organizations Across Time and Spaces: The Rise of UN Country Teams

AbstractThis article analyses the progress of the agenda committed to tackle the fragmentation of the UN system to better understand the process of institutional change in International Organizations. Focusing on changes undergone by the UN's country‐level presence, the case study of the voluntary implementation of Delivering as One initiative (DaO) in Mozambique and Vietnam demonstrates how common plans, joint programs and pooled funds have promoted better divisions of labor and settled divergences among UN entities. This has fostered the national ownership of UN country‐level activities and developed the nexus of humanitarian‐development agendas. Pilot countries and donors resorted to selective incentives for the engagement of UN bureaucracies, who, especially at headquarters, remained resistant to reforms. Reform was subject to incentives and constraints that were introduced and manifested unevenly across spaces and over time. It lost momentum both in Mozambique and Vietnam following the pilot phase, when donors’ engagement faltered, but had more enduring effects in the latter, where the government’s greater capacity to engage in favor of reforms supported the compliance of UN country offices. This indicates the United Nations Country Teams (UNCT) consolidation amid institutional changes based on layering institutional innovations alongside extant structures, overcoming conflicts of loyalties.

Effectiveness of I’m Learning for achieving quality learning environments

From 2013 to 2017, Save the Children Norway tested the hypothesis that a global framework could be used to empower locally driven solutions within the education sector. It did so by galvanizing support and aligning stakeholders to common goals articulated through the Quality Learning Environment Framework but allowing each community context to determine its own path for achieving those goals. This article explores the effectiveness and impact of these projects across the three pilot countries of Cambodia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe as defined by the original project goals, outcomes, and objectives. Reflecting on both qualitative and quantitative data gathered throughout the life of the project, the article speaks to project impact and achievements as well as operational findings including commonalities and differences between the three pilot projects and keys to success. It outlines lessons learned across the programming sites and in doing so it explores the role of a large International Non-Governmental Organization as a catalyst for change. Finally, it discusses the rigorous research and reporting framework driven by funders and development agencies, the rigidity of which struggled to capture the emergent nature of locally driven solutions.

Advances in real-time social listening for an adaptive public health response: WHO’s EARS platform

BackgroundCOVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by an Infodemic (overabundance of information, including misinformation and disinformation, both online and offline); in response to this Infodemic, WHO launched the EARS platform (Early AI-assisted Response with Social Listening), showing real-time information about how people are talking about COVID-19 online. This information is intended to serve health information professionals to understand narratives and needs of the general public, in order to inform policy or communications decisions.MethodsData is collected daily from online conversations in publicly available sources, including Twitter, online forums, and blogs in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, for 20 pilot countries. Once the data is collected, it is processed and classified into 39 categories, according to a set of pandemic public health taxonomy. The classification is made based on semi-supervised machine learning.ResultsTop 5 categories across regions are Covid-19 vaccine, Transmission settings, Personal measures, Testing and Industry (industry refers to the impact of the pandemic on the economy). We find that conversations around Covid-19 vaccines usually rank in the second or third position in all regions and represent 9%-12% of the conversation.ConclusionsThe configuration and application of the EARS platform has enabled progress towards more scalable and sustainable social listening to inform Infodemic management and response, compared to previous methods which were more manual, required data scientists in the team, or had fewer analytics capabilities. Future work will focus on gradually adding more data sources which can expand coverage and representativity.Key messages Discuss social listening methods for greater accountability to affected populations.Formulate insights into how digital media and information technology can be better utilized for more rapidly responding to the evolving needs of communities.

CoME EASY—Synchronizing European Energy Award with Other Initiatives. Case Study: Romanian Local Communities

CoME EASY is a European Union H2020 project started in May 2018, which aims to help local public authorities secure a more sustainable energy and climate policy, in line with the New Green Deal and Fit for 55 initiatives. The main idea of CoME EASY is to offer an integrated package of on-line tools that synchronize European Energy Awards (EEA) with Covenant of Mayors (CoM), ISOs, Smart Cities, and other initiatives that allow local communities to have multiple commitments for energy efficiency and climate with less effort. EEA is a quality management and awarding system for municipalities and regions, which started in 1988 in Switzerland and now includes more than 1700 municipalities from 8 countries and 10 new pilot countries with more than 65 million people belonging to the local communities that are involved. There are six main areas of activity in EEA (Development and Spatial Planning Strategy, Municipal Buildings and Facilities, Supply and Disposal, Mobility, Internal Organization, Communication and Cooperation) through which municipalities are driven by advisors so as to receive a score in percentage for each area, which further allows them to compare with other communities. Romania has been an EEA pilot country since 2016 and, despite initial problems in implementing the system, now has three communities, Iași (Romania second largest city), Alba Iulia (the so-called other Romanian capital), and Vama Buzăului, included in CoME EASY. These cities tested frameworking tools and managed to be assessed with EAA tools, and developed a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan synchronously. Owing to the CoME EASY tools, all of these communities were able to deliver key performance indicators that are in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.