The overall purpose of the COVID-19 response is for AUDA-NEPAD to support African countries navigate this uncharted territory with minimal casualties. AUDA-NEPAD in partnership with DFS Africa developed a digital communication strategy to facilitate communication with Africans wherever they are with the right information about COVID-19, prevention, medication and best practices.

The availability of a reliable digital communication platform during a pandemic can be the difference between safety and the loss of millions of lives. Due to the importance of quality communications in such a critical time, AUDA-NEPAD with technical support of DFS Africa has developed 8 sessions of webinars that will bring together all the leading institutions at the forefront of combating COVID-19 on the continent. For further information on the topics to be considered and organisations that we will be working with, please visit:https://www.africapharmaconf.com/site/webinars/

As part of the strategy to deliver a multipurpose digital communication platform for AUDA-NEPAD COVID-19 a tool was developed that could collect data and manage liaison with all the digital communication implementation stakeholders’ e.g. technology providers, vendors, speakers, marketing etc.  The platform is also used to manage knowledge gaps and create relevant content for AUDA-NEPAD and the other institutions at the forefront of combating COVID-19 in Africa.

The first webinar in the AUDA-NEPAD COVID-19 response was a success with 565 registered participants from 39 countries, of whom 32 of them are African countries, spread across 4 continents.

Over the next 3 months with 8 webinars planned for each fortnight, our analysis show we will grow the database to about 7,000 active users and an average of 2,000 registered participants for each webinar.