Evaluation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Contribution to the 2009 Africa Polio Outbreak Response

While the polio eradication effort has made significant progress since 1988, the recent spread of polio in late 2008 and throughout 2009, particularly in Africa, has caused some African countries that had been polio-free for a number of years to become reinfected. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is a broad partnership of organizations committed to global eradication of polio. The role of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and its member National Societies in this partnership has historically been concerned with social mobilization around supplementary immunization activities. To undertake social mobilization, each National Society mobilizes and trains its network of volunteers.

An independent evaluation of the role of the Red Cross Red Crescent was commissioned, with a remit to assess the added value of the activities undertaken with the emergency appeal funding. Of the 15 countries funded, the evaluation team visited four of the countries to interview stakeholders and in some cases to visit households and observe activities undertaken by the National Society. The stakeholders interviewed were all asked the same series of questions which had been developed earlier by the evaluation team. The team also studied reports from the other 11 countries. It was in general found that the experiences of all the countries funded were very similar.