The two year project, funded by the New Frontiers in Research Fund, addresses priority 5.1 of the UN Research Roadmap for COVID-19 Recovery on social cohesion and community resilience: How can communities be optimally engaged in decision-making during emergencies to strengthen social cohesion? What are the best strategies for leveraging existing local and traditional knowledge sources to inform decision-making?
The project team will support community members and other stakeholders in Darazo to map out their knowledge of what increased the impact of the pandemic and for who, then carry out a survey to measure identified risk factors, experience of COVID-19 impact, social capital, and community social cohesion. Stakeholders will co-design strategies for COVID-19 recovery based on this local evidence. The project will measure the effect of this participation on social capital and community cohesion.
The project kicked off this month with the inaugural meeting of the steering committee (pictured), convened by the Bauchi government ministry leading COVID-19 recovery efforts. The members heard about the project aims and methods and discussed the next steps in the coming months.
We wish Dr Anne Cockcroft and the rest of the team success with this exciting new initiative!
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