Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; New York, USA; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Lusaka, Zambia 12 November, 2020: The One by One: Target Covid-19 Campaign announces a new partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation to support Africa CDC’s Covid-19 Response Strategy using strategic communication and behaviour change campaigns across the continent. The One by One: Target Covid-19 Campaign was created in partnership between the Africa CDC, African Union, Access Challenge, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation, and Clouds Media Group in April 2020 to support the Africa CDC’s Continental Strategy in response to Covid-19. Since then, the Campaign has raised over $4 million for the Africa CDC to mobilize testing and PPE for countries in need. The Campaign is also developing a wide-range of digital open-source communications materials which provide accurate and life-saving information on Covid-19 for Africans across the continent.
Through this new partnership, the One by One: Target Covid-19 campaign will recruit the most prominent African media personalities, journalists, and influencers within the sports, entertainment, cultural, and faith groups, to help ensure that life-saving information to fight the Covid-19 pandemic reaches Africans across the continent. Each influencer will participate in a series of public health communications workshops & training sessions. These sessions will empower influencers with timely information about Covid-19, how it is spread and the best ways for individuals to keep themselves safe. Each of the influencers will then be guided on how to use their popular platforms virally to encourage and promote positive and accurate social behavior change messages to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Ultimately, the Campaign will engage and empower popular artists, sports celebrities, cultural, business, and political leaders as informed messengers of accurate and essential public health information. The celebrities and media personalities who participate in the workshops will also be equipped with AU/CDC/WHO approved “Engagement Toolkits” that are designed to help the media personalities to design their own, proprietary but accurate Covid-19 campaigns.
The Campaign will also create country-specific behavior change campaigns in each of Zambia and DRC to ensure that people throughout these countries, including in remote communities, have access to the life-saving information they need to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. These campaigns will include context-specific and targeted messages, delivered by local celebrities and community leaders and in partnerships with local media houses.
The campaign’s principal media partner is Pan-African media group, Clouds Media. Clouds will manage all media content distribution in partnership with local media houses.
“The danger of Covid-19 has been further amplified by the epidemic of misinformation. We applaud this effort by the One by One Campaign and The Rockefeller Foundation on engaging influencers and strategic communications to bring accurate information to the most vulnerable African countries. During these unprecedented times, our response needs innovative communication strategies among a diverse group of stakeholders, such as influencers within the entertainment, sport, cultural, faith, and local communities as trusted voices that can drive the Covid-19 response across Africa” – Dr John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)
“The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the importance of delivering accurate, timely information to ensure people have the tools they need to stay safe from the virus. As Covid-19 has taken root, so too have damaging misinformation campaigns, creating additional risk to a crisis that has already reached an unprecedented scale. We’re proud to be working with The One by One Campaign to support the Africa CDC’s Covid-19 Response Strategy and ensure the most vulnerable populations have access to the true and accurate information they need.” – Dr Naveen Rao, Senior Vice President for Health, The Rockefeller Foundation
One by One: Target Covid-19
One by One: Target Covid-19 is a pan-African, coalition-driven communications and advocacy campaign created by The Access Challenge, the African Union, the Africa CDC, and the Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation. The Coalition supports the African Union in its Covid-19 response by advocating for increased financing for the Africa Covid-19 Response Fund to strengthen the Africa CDC’s capacity for securing essential diagnostics and medical supplies. The Campaign also includes a mass media campaign which mobilizes cultural influencers to promote testing and social prevention measures across the continent.
The Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation advances new frontiers of science, data, and innovation to solve global challenges related to health, food, power, and economic mobility. As a science-driven philanthropy focused on building collaborative relationships with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to inspire and foster large-scale human impact that promotes the well-being of humanity throughout the world by identifying and accelerating breakthrough solutions, ideas, and conversations. For more information, sign up for our newsletter at rockefellerfoundation.org and follow us on Twitter @RockefellerFdn.
The Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation
The Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation (JMKF) was established in February 2017 with the vision of transforming lives through innovative, effective, sustainable, and value-added solutions. The Foundation’s mission is to work with governments and other stakeholders to bring about progressive change and transform the quality of people’s lives across Africa
The Africa CDC
Africa CDC is a specialized technical institution of the African Union that strengthens the capacity and capability of Africa’s public health institutions as well as partnerships to detect and respond quickly and effectively to disease threats and outbreaks, based on data-driven interventions and programmes. Learn more at: http://www.africacdc.org
Clouds Media
Clouds Media is one of the leading media houses in East and Central Africa and has been recognized as one of the regions premier Superbrands due to its commitment to imagination, aspiration, and innovation across all broadcast mediums. Learn more at: http://cloudsmedia.com/about-us/
For media enquiries
Asad Lilani, asad.lilani@accesschallenge.org, Director of Political Strategy, The Access Challenge