What We Do

Polio and Other Vaccine-preventable Diseases

In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was established as part of a global effort to immunize against the disease that had been paralyzing hundreds of children daily. About a decade later, CGPP began (in 1999) working alongside large, international health organizations through local and international implementing partners providing technical support for community-based activities in areas that weren’t otherwise being reached. Since then, wild poliovirus has decreased around the world by 99 percent, with endemic transmission of wild poliovirus continuing in areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, in areas where there is low immunity, circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) still threatens the world with a resurgence of polio as well as the transboundary threat from the remaining endemic countries. As the saying goes, “Polio anywhere is a threat everywhere.” The world is so close to eradication, yet simultaneously at risk that the forward progress we’ve made becomes undone. This is why CGPP provides support and on-the-ground technical guidance to strengthen host country efforts to eradicate polio through community-based activities with the involvement of civil societies and community-based networks. In training and supervising community health workers, government health workers, and community volunteers, the project facilitates communication, coordination, standardization, and transparent decision-making among civil society, local and international NGOs, GPEI organizations, and donors.  

With their technical and management expertise, country secretariat teams ensure the alignment of the country programs (implemented by both local and international NGO partners) strategy and quality meet the global and national level requirements for polio eradication. The secretariat staff provide technical assistance to partners to ensure the quality and standardization of project implementation for community-based surveillance of polio and other outbreaks of global health security concerns, strengthening quality and coverage of supplementary immunization activities, risk communication and community engagement  through flipbooks and other community case definition materials for vaccine-preventable diseases, and community sensitization especially through influential community leaders, and promoting evidence-informed programming and decision making to reach children in remote, mobile, cross-border and conflict-affected areas. Much of this work is done using capacitated community volunteers and community health workers. Additionally, secretariats offer support for routine immunization systems to integrate polio eradication activities like surveillance, communications, and birth dose polio vaccines to ensure all children are reached. 

Global Health Security

The Global Health Security Agenda was launched in February 2014 to advance a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats, to bring together nations from all over the world to make new, concrete commitments, and to elevate global health security as a national leaders-level priority. The G7 endorsed the GHSA in June 2014. Since 2016, over 67 countries have signed on to become members on the GHSA. Through a partnership of nations, international organizations, and non-governmental stakeholders, GHS facilitates collaborative, capacity-building efforts to achieve specific and measurable targets around biological threats, while accelerating achievement of the core capacities required by the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Health Regulations (IHR), the World Organization of Animal Health’s (OIE) Performance of Veterinary Services Pathway, and other relevant global health security frameworks. Achievement of progress towards fulfilling IHR is evaluated by the Joint External Evaluation Tool 2.0.

In 2019, the CGPP program countries of Kenya and Ethiopia integrated national health security priorities to strengthen country capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to infectious disease outbreaks and epidemic threats in communities at heightened risk. Since then, the project has also started GHS programs in Nigeria and South Sudan. Through a multi-sectoral, One Health approach, the program leverages existing capacities that focus on the training and support of community health workers, outbreak response planning, community-based surveillance, and risk communication to promote GHS as a local, national, and international priority.

COVID-19 and Other Emerging Diseases

When COVID-19 emerged globally, CGPP received COVID-19 funds to integrate prevention and control efforts with existing polio and vaccine-preventable disease platforms especially in enhancing vaccine uptake, addressing myths and misinformation as well as offering community-based surveillance in areas where the formal health care system is either weak or nonexistent. In all countries where polio eradication community activities were implemented, CGPP integrated COVID-19 messaging and training. CGPP supported COVID-19 vaccination efforts by providing information about vaccine effectiveness to communities, providing outreach vaccination, mobilizing communities for vaccination, and in some cases integrating COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization.