Leveraging Youth Engagement For Emergency Response

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly facing multiple Public Health Emergencies

(PHEs) that require rapid response.

However, the disaster-preparedness of most African countries remains inadequate. Initiatives

such as the African Union (AU) Bingwa COVID-19 Vaccination initiative provide a compelling

model for engaging youth in emergency response, demonstrating that their involvement can

expedite access to vaccines at the grassroots level, strengthen community resilience, combat

disinformation and enhance response effectiveness. 

This Policy Brief outlines the key lessons

from the AU Bingwa Initiative, emphasizing the need for structured youth participation,

leveraging digital engagements and creatives, as well as the need for political will and support

to maximize the impact of youth-driven approaches to future PHE responses. The policy brief is

based on evidence from the impact report of the AU Bingwa initiative to articulate key insights

that policy makers and practitioners in the PHE response sector may consider when crafting

interventions that are intended to actively involve the youth in future.

Key Learnings from the AU Bingwa Initiative

Youth are Agents of Change: The AU Bingwa initiative mobilized young leaders to

advocate for COVID-19 vaccination. Their grassroots engagement, digital outreach, and

storytelling campaigns significantly influenced public perception and vaccine uptake.

Community-Centered Approaches Work: The initiative’s success stemmed from cultural

sensitivity, localized messaging, and partnerships with community leaders. Future

programs should tailor interventions to local contexts for greater trust and adoption.

Digital Platforms Amplify Impact: social media, online campaigns, and partnerships

with influencers expanded the initiative’s reach, engaging millions. Investing in youth-led

digital strategies can enhance future PHE responses.

Tap into Africa’s Creative Sector: Strategic collaborations with Africa’s creative sector

can transform complex public health information into engaging, community-specific

content, significantly improving sensitization efforts.

Institutional Support is Crucial: Government backing and financial investment are

essential for youth-driven initiatives to thrive. Policies should formalize youth inclusion

in national health emergency frameworks.

Key recommendations

Engaging and involving the youths in national and continental PHE response

processes is a high-return venture that continental health institutions,

development agencies and governments should always consider. The formal

engagement of youth during the AU Bingwa Initiative was crucial as it helped

influence policy narratives, expedite decision-making processes, strengthen

grassroots capacity, and improve the success of the COVID-19 response.

It is vital to gain political will and support from African governments and local

leadership. Without that support, implementation becomes difficult because local

communities wait for guidance from government officials and local leaders when

it comes to externally driven socio-economic development initiatives.

Involvement of creative industries and digital platforms in youth-led PHE

response processes can add a lot of value as it resonates very well with the youth

and their communities. It was useful in driving the uptake of vaccines among

the youth as the creative industry performances and information dissemination

through digital platforms made it possible for the AU Bingwas to reach larger

numbers of people. This approach should also be deployable in the Mpox

response and other PHE response efforts.

It is important to integrate evidence-based approaches that prioritize helping

populations to understand and make sense of the known risks and advantages

associated with PHEs. Having compelling data, evidence, and information was

crucial for the Bingwas to convince stakeholders who were otherwise hesitant to

accept vaccines.

Overall, the AU Bingwa initiative represented a positive and proactive response to the COVID-19

pandemic, highlighting the importance of collaboration, youth empowerment, and community

engagement in the quest for PHE response and recovery. We recommend that AU Member

States and institutions active in the PHE response sector scale up the approaches used under

the AU Bingwa initiative as a model of successful response mechanisms and interventions that

actively involve the youth.

BACKGROUND

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) increasingly faces multiple Public Health Emergencies

(PHEs) that require rapid response.

For instance, from 2001 to 2022, the (SSA) region reported 1,800 PHEs, such as Ebola, cholera,

meningitis, measles, yellow fever, monkeypox, Zika, Rift valley fever, and COVID-19 (Moyo et al.,

2023). Zoonotic pathogen outbreaks caused by monkeypox and Ebola viruses have also risen

significantly, with a 63% increase between 2012 and 2022 compared to the previous decade

(WHO, 2022). Even after the COVID 19 pandemic experiences that killed at least 7 million people

world-wide, Africa and the rest of the world still seem to be poorly prepared for another serious

disease outbreak (Staines, 2025). The recent outbreak of Monkeypox (Mpox) in Africa raised

serious concerns about the ability of various AU Member States to effectively manage and

contain its spread and that of other emerging infectious diseases. Figure 1 summarizes the

distribution of the number of public health emergency events reported by type of infectious

disease outbreak, grouped by event category in the WHO Africa Region as of 2018.

Figure 1 shows that outbreaks of Cholera have been the most frequent when compared to

other outbreaks. This is followed by Measles, Yellow Fever, and then Rift Valley Fever. Other

disease outbreaks with significant levels of frequency include Meningitis, Dengue Fever, and

Monkeypox.

At the national level, the quest for robust systems of preparedness and response to disease

outbreaks in Africa also faces several challenges. Among other challenges, these include resource

constraints, underlying systemic gaps, and knowledge limitations. 

At the individual/ household

level, poverty, stigma, low-risk perception, limited access to healthcare, and conflicting cultural

and religious beliefs pose additional barriers to response systems (Buseh et al., 2015; Moyo et

al., 2023). This serves as a stark reminder of the need to invest in public health infrastructure,

strengthen disease surveillance and response systems, and prioritize the health and well-being

of vulnerable populations on the African continent (Al-Tawfiq et al., 2024).

Limitations in knowledge about the treatment or containment of new disease outbreaks often

makes it difficult for public health institutions to provide appropriate response. As MacGregor

et al. (2020) point out, the reality of limited knowledge in different African countries about

many aspects of new disease outbreaks, coupled with predictions of potentially devastating

consequences often engender a sense of greater urgency among key actors at the national and

global levels who are responsible for implementing appropriate responses to the new disease

outbreaks. For example, limitations in knowledge about the COVID-19 virus made the design and

implementation of effective interventions quite confounding for both developed and developing

countries.