Along with health authorities, non-state health actors are important partners in controlling outbreaks and responding to health emergencies.
Communities are not passive subjects of health interventions. Involving community health actors increases the community’s acceptance of life-saving health response.
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Local health NGOs and actors are already on the ground at the outset of a crisis and are critical first responders in helping to break the transmission chain (in the case of outbreaks) or mobilize life-saving movements of supplies or people before local/national authorities (MOH) or UN/INGO support can arrive.
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In a multidimensional conflict where access is constrained, local health NGOs and actors are better placed to reach populations across lines of control or difficult terrain. Local communities know their landscape best, and national, UN and INGO partners can work with them (e.g. in case detection, contact tracing) to ensure continued service delivery in a way that accounts for local actors’ safety risks.
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Local and community-based members of the Health Cluster are best placed to be immediately involved and put to work in a response as partners/stakeholders as part of any Incident Management System (IMS) set up under WHO’s ERF. Local actors may have experience working with other UN agencies/clusters and may have skills and capacities that can be useful for health response.
Working with local health actors helps health authorities and WHO to jointly identify and respond to social patterns of transmission at the community level. As seen in countries with large urban-rural divides such as the DR Congo, communities may have their own perception of risks that influence their acceptance of health advice and may prefer local health actors who are seen as having more empathy despite lacking expertise. This does not rule out a role for health experts, but instead gives community actors a role of sensitizing the community on the need for expert health advice to be accepted and followed.
