Country Showcases: Verified COVID-19 Information in India, Brazil & South Africa

Over the last 18 months, the United Nations and Purpose have been running Verified, a global communications initiative to cut through the noise and deliver life-saving information on COVID-19. Since May 2020, Verified has reached over one billion people around the world with reliable, accurate information about COVID-19.

Through 2021, we have moved towards a model that centers communications efforts designed to reach vulnerable populations who have not yet been reached or have not responded to traditional public health communications.

This requires specific content & strategies tailored to the needs of each region.  Watch the country showcases for India, Brazil, and South Africa below to learn more about Verified’s goals and content in each country: 

In each of these countries, we learned:
• The importance of localized content partnerships to disseminate public health information
• The role influencers and trusted voices have in crisis communications
• How to use behavioural science to help stop the spread of misinformation
• The value of social media tactics to reach audiences where they are online

These country showcases were shared at the event, “Fighting the COVID-19 Infodemic: What We’ve Learned,” which you can watch in full here.

We heard from officials in India about how Verified was able to reach across the digital divide in Delhi’s informal urban communities, using ‘Saathis’ – trusted local messengers – to speak to people about COVID in the way they needed to hear it.

From Brazil, an Olympic volleyball champion and a music producer told us how well-respected names and faces from sport and the arts took Verified’s messages about sticking to safe behaviours and influenced younger people to persist, even in the face of ‘COVID fatigue.’

And from South Africa, a Zwakala community champion joined a health expert to describe how a movement that inspired a township to protect itself against infection became a national campaign.

Learn more about Verified and our work in other regions here.