My engagements with rural communities in Nigeria have shown that the state and non-state actors have not effectively communicated the polio vaccine in a way that will make the rural population accept it. Communication failure is hinged on many factors that need to be addressed to record success.
For example, my engagements with the locals in rural communities in north-central Nigeria reveal that many state and non-state actors especially non-governmental organisations (NGOs), do not design communication approaches that consider the people’s culture and beliefs that respect their cultural sensitivity. When communication approaches do not respect cultural sensitivity, it leads to mistrust among the people resulting in resistance.
Fundamentally, state and non-state actors do not prioritise participatory communication, which facilitates a process that will enable community members to be effectively involved in the decision-making process. This results in the community’s lack of ownership and accountability, which makes it difficult to accept and act on the information provided. The state and non-state actors often forget that communication is not only about information dissemination but dialogue and negotiation with the people at the centre of the entire process.
Communication consultants hired by the state and non-state actors to design communication targeting the locals for polio vaccine acceptance disregard the cardinal role of Indigenous communication approaches such as community gathering for information sharing, storytelling, and elder teaching when targeting rural populations. They often design communication approaches that adopt the use of English as the language of communication, radio, television, and social media as a medium of communication. When this happens, the state and non-state actors will end up creating awareness with the rural population who are the target beneficiaries not able to understand what the issues are resulting in a huge communication failure.
The state and non-state actors do not design polio vaccine communication to enable community health officials to play a critical role in working with the locals to address misinformation and rumors associated with vaccines.
However, when the misinformation, disinformation, and rumors are not addressed using local health officials, they will result in mistrust that will lead to polio vaccine resistance.
Also, a huge number of state and non-state actors do not carry out continuous monitoring and evaluation of their communication approaches to gauge their success or failure and identify areas for improvement.
By Audu Liberty Oseni, Director, MAWA – Foundation