.encouraging and supporting community engagement initiatives through trained Village Health Committees has proved successful in disseminating COVID-19 prevention messages and in fostering local adaptation and resilience to the pandemic. In 2020-2021, in partnership with the Republican Centre for Health Promotion and Mass Communication (the agency mandated by the Ministry of Health), a World Bank team contributed to the development of a joint action plan for a nation-wide communication campaign to raise public awareness about COVID-19 and encourage preventive behaviours in the Kyrgyz Republic. Community-led communication campaigns and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions have also been implemented in schools and the wider community in various regions.
Editor’s Note:
Landlocked in Central Asia, the Kyrgyz Republic has a population of 6.5 million people, two-thirds of whom live in rural areas. As in many parts of the world, the COVID-19 crisis has hit the Kyrgyz Republic hard, with over 83,000 cases and 1,394 deaths reported so far. As part of the World Bank’s support to the country in responding effectively to the pandemic, under the Sustainable Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Development Project, specific COVID-related communication activities at the national level were initiated, and ongoing activities at the local level were adapted to the COVID-19 context. The below Q&A with Susanna Smets, Aidai Bayalieva, Togzhan Alibekova – the World Bank team working on the project – sheds a light on these activities.