As we were planning the webinar a few months ago, we never thought that the whole world will become vulnerable and fragile to the COVID-19 pandemic. The resilience of community health system will be in test along with health service delivery. So it is very important as a community of practice we join this important discussion and learn from the countries who have managed to bring different community structures in fragile situation.  

Emphasis on community health system and particularly those in fragile setting has found a new momentum since the Astana Declaration on primary health care of October 2018. CH-CoP is developing its learning agenda of community health in fragile settings and initiated a webinar in 2018 and a panel at the 2nd International Symposium on Community Health Workers (CHW) in Dhaka, Bangladesh in November 2019, and is continuing the dialogue in its forum. The learning’s from our discussions and activities on this issue have highlighted that in fragile settings there is a need to provide a support structure to CHWs where they can interact with leaders, community-based organizations and other entities of the community.

As the second of our webinars series on this issue, this webinar highlights key community interventions that are implemented in fragile settings drawing from cross-country examples – Cameroon and Liberia. These community interventions involving multiple local actors are key to accelerate services like immunization among children in case of Cameroon or tacking Ebola in case of Liberia. Community engagement as one of the crucial contributing factor during Ebola epidemic in Liberia highlights that meaningful community engagement in health response efforts is associated with increased trust, improved communication, and continued meaningful community engagement in health activities and initiatives – all necessary conditions for health system resilience.