Community-led Innovations and Actions in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Community engagement and community-led approaches have been considered a fundamental component of past pandemics, such as Ebola, and the same has been observed in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, especially for reaching the most vulnerable. There is a large and growing literature base on community-led innovations in general, to which literature reflecting on Covid-19 responses is increasingly contributing to. This rapid literature review draws on a range of academic and NGO sources. First, Section 2 briefly explores what is meant by “community-led innovations”, as community-led is a loosely defined term that can take on a variety of meanings. Section 3 provides some examples of community-led innovations and actions from across a variety of contexts, including high-, middle- and low-income countries. Given the scale and scope of the subject, these only provide a small snapshot of community-led initiatives that have taken place in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Section 4 summarises the key common features and trends across examples. Section 5 summarises some general lessons and success factors identified in the examples and literature, building on the findings from Section 4.