WHO EPI-WIN webinar: Ready & Resilient: community social protection for preparedness and response

Date and time: Thursday 29 January 2026, 11PM AEDT

Effective health emergency management achieves protection of those at-risk or directly affected. Under HEPR, community protection refers to community centered actions that protect those who are at risk or affected from the health and social impacts of the health emergency. Therefore, Community protection puts an emphasis on equity and accountability and the need to make a conscious effort to protect the health and social needs, well-being, and livelihoods of those at-risk or affected.

Effectively enabling community protection requires that the policies and practices regarding how population and environmental interventions are implemented account for these diverse impacts in order to avoid reinforcing inequities and inadvertently causing harm to the very individuals they aim to protect. Within the community protection objectives, a whole-of-government, multisectoral and multi-partnership approach aims at ensuring a whole-of-society response mitigating any avoidable harm from the response. This includes strengthening social protection policies and programs to secure basic income for material needs, including food security, and protect livelihoods.

Such a holistic approach to emergency management further includes ensuring business continuity for economic stability, maintaining the continuity of education and learning, Continuity of community services, and recognizing and responding to indirect health and mental health impacts by incorporating strategies that address the broader health and social consequences of emergencies.

This webinar gives an overview over community social protection, and highlights examples from the field where this is successfully implemented in the African and European region- in outbreaks and conflict, displacement and among host communities. The involvement of health, education, protection, livelihoods and food security is highlighted, as well as a multi-stakeholder cash assistance scheme to assist vulnerable and conflict effected.

To register, click the link below:

https://who.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0UPbjPV6SuGsuozD_3g8ow#/registration