Digital Community Engagement: Strategy 2025-2026

"In the face of expanding polio outbreaks and rising WPV1 [wild poliovirus type 1] cases, the role of digital community engagement has become increasingly integral to eradication efforts."

This document outlines the 2025-2026 strategy of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Digital Community Engagement (DCE) programme. Launched in 2021, the DCE works to track polio misinformation online, develop accurate messaging for digital channels, and support digital volunteers and UNICEF country offices to ensure that communities' polio information needs are met. It leverages the latest social and community listening technology to identify real-time community challenges and deploys evidence-based digital interventions to support continued polio vaccine acceptance. 

The strategy document explains that "As the spread of misinformation and disinformation continues to grow and reach an ever-expanding population of social media users, amplified by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and ongoing political and social polarization worldwide, the role of digital engagement in eliminating polio has become increasingly critical. Alongside an evolving digital landscape, polio outbreaks are expanding to new geographies and populations. This presents an opportunity for DCE to consider its strategy for the next 2 years to ensure it is built to respond and deliver amidst these changes."

To date, the DCE has analysed millions of pieces of digital content to identify misinformation circulating about polio and has reached over 100 million people with accurate information through online platforms. This work has been achieved through a number of activities, including: conducting media monitoring and alerting field teams about misinformation, disinformation, and information gaps online; leveraging digital volunteer influencers through the uInfluence programme; and creating targeted digital ads that prebunk and debunk trending misinformation (See Related Summaries below for an evaluation report that outlines the different programme activities and their impact).

The new strategy presents DCE's role in supporting the goals of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) - in particular, its communication priorities - and outlines how DCE will continue to serve as the critical online complement to UNICEF social and behaviour change (SBC) interventions in the field to support vaccine acceptance.

Key priorities for the new strategy are to ensure DCE remains agile to match the urgency of eradication efforts while developing messaging and approaches that are evidence-based, highly tailored to the needs of communities, and responsive to the latest narratives and misinformation reaching key audiences. The strategy also outlines approaches for ensuring digital engagement efforts are in line with field realities and ultimately owned and implemented by field teams.

The strategy is built around 5 key pillars that outline the objectives and sub-objectives that DCE will seek to achieve in the 2025-2026 timeframe. Under each pillar, the document also looks at what success will look like. The key pillars are: 
 

1. Complement: Foster an online ecosystem that sustains educated acceptance for polio vaccination by leveraging digital platforms to supplement SBC initiatives.
2. Anticipate: Utilise social and community listening tools and techniques to improve proactive detection and analysis of misinformation and disinformation, enabling tailored counter-narratives to manage vaccine hesitancy effectively.
3. Mobilise: Develop and implement a dynamic digital social mobilisation programme that harnesses the power of locally relevant micro and macro influencers to reinstate polio immunisation as a global priority.
4. Empower: Implement a comprehensive DCE capacity-building programme, providing digital learning resources and tailored training opportunities for staff, frontline workers, and partners to enhance their ability to engage communities effectively.
5. Collaborate: Work closely with field teams to design and implement targeted digital campaigns that address community information needs promptly and drive efficient engagement, reinforcing confidence in polio eradication efforts.

The pillars are grounded in the DCE Framework (a systematic approach to listen, understand, contextualise, collaborate, and respond to community information needs) and a set of key enablers that outline values and priorities that underpin all of DCE's efforts and ensure its work is responsive to local insights (tailored and localised content), culturally relevant and respectful (cultural sensitivity and inclusivity), and well poised to influence vaccination narratives, behaviours, and outcomes on a global scale (scale and sustainability). According to the document, these key enablers are intentionally built for the future and can be applied to digital engagement for any public health programme. This flexible and open-ended approach is intented to foster greater integration with public health programmes and to ensure the relevance of polio investments in a post-polio world.