Africa Centres for Disease Control partners Co-Creation Hub in the fight against COVID-19

Africa CDC joins forces with CcHUB in seeking out innovative ways to educate and sensitise the continent on dealing with COVID-19.

Leading technology innovation centre in Africa, Co-Creation Hub, has announced their collaboration with Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). The partnership which is aimed at combating stigmatisation and dispelling fake news is targeted at the semi-urban and rural population across Africa.

The mode of the partnership is such that that a call will be made for innovative communication projects on COVID-19 in African languages. The collaboration will focus on projects delivering vetted critical information from Africa CDC to Africans in these remote areas, using culturally-sensitive messaging. This involves educating the public and ensuring fact-based information reaches targeted demographics through the likes of comics, animation, illustrations, infographics, interactive SMS, and mobile apps.

The selected teams will be supported with grant funding of up to $5000 for research and design support. Proposed projects can be focused on one African country or multiple countries across the continent.

Dr. Benjamin Djoudalbaye, Head of Policy, Health Diplomacy, and Communication at the Africa CDC stated that the collaboration is to "enhance efforts of the Africa CDC towards educating the public and ensuring that the right information reaches even remote locations across the continent to avoid unnecessary panic and misinformation".

CcHUB, through its internal research and development unit—CcHUB Design Lab— will collaborate with innovators to provide technical support using innovative digital and non-digital methodologies to ensure the mass messaging on Coronavirus reaches the semi-urban and rural population across Africa.

‘Bosun Tijani, CcHUB’s Co-founder and CEO, says, "This is a critical time where tech in Africa should be used in smart ways to ensure broader citizen awareness and understanding of COVID-19 response strategies and precautions".

This collaboration is supported by the Joint African Union–German Cooperation on Citizens Engagement and Innovative Data Use for Africa’s Development (Data-Cipation) programme implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

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