WHO WE ARE
The CORE Group Polio Project (CGPP) is a multi-country, multi-partner initiative providing financial support and on-the-ground technical guidance to strengthen host country efforts to eradicate polio. The CGPP works to improve vaccine uptake for polio (and other vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles), conducts surveillance for infectious disease threats, and strengthens health systems. The CGPP operates with 11 international nongovernmental organizations (iNGOs) and 22 national and local NGOs in seven countries: India, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda.
The CGPP’s Integrated Approach
Since 1999, a decentralized and well-established secretariat model of operation guides the project. A primary goal is to avoid duplication of efforts among actors who share the same space. A U.S.-based virtual secretariat serves as a global CGPP liaison, supplying overall coordination, technical assistance, and financial management to maximize and harmonize resources among partners. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) partners – WHO, Rotary International, UNICEF, CDC, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance – establish guiding protocols. The in-country secretariats function as technical resources to partners and oversee the quality and standardization of project implementation per national strategies. As part of this effort, the in-country secretariats contribute to building national-level partners’ capacity to ensure sustainability long after polio eradication and once countries can operate independently of donor funding. All interventions are coordinated with government ministries for country-level ownership and implemented by international, national, and local NGOs.
The CGPP Secretariat Model of Operation
Several CORE Group member organizations come together to implement the CGPP secretariat model, a time-tested mechanism for increasing collaboration and cooperation. Central to the model and each CGPP country site is an in-country secretariat – a small team of neutral, technical advisors, independent from any single implementing partner. The secretariat teams facilitate communication, coordination, and transparent decision-making among all partners – unifying the community-level expertise of iNGOs and local/national NGOs with the international knowledge and strategies of the GPEI partners. All secretariat teams represent bottom-up community perspectives, update partners, and share data and resources from project implementation areas.
At the community level, the CGPP continually identifies, reviews, and prioritizes community needs and complex realities by registering community concerns and sharing diverse data, lessons learned, and effective practices. As a result, the project drives conversations from the community perspective, ensuring shared learning and accountability, informing decision making to formulate practical strategies, and enabling rapid response and action.
The CGPP Communities
SIX CORE OBJECTIVES
The goal of CGPP is contribute to polio eradication by increasing population immunity and enhancing surveillance for Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP).
Build effective partnerships between CORE Group NGOs and international, national and local agencies involved in polio.
Support CORE Group NGOs and national and local NGOs efforts to strengthen the routine immunization systems to achieve polio eradication.
Support CORE Group NGOs and national and local NGOs involvement in national and regional planning and implementation of supplemental polio immunizations.
Support CORE Group NGOs and national and local NGOs efforts to strengthen AFP case detection and reporting (and case detection of other infectious diseases).
Support timely documentation and use of information to continuously improve the quality of polio eradication (and other related health) activities.
Support CORE Group NGOs and national and local NGOs participation in either national and/or regional certification activities.
US-Based Global Secretariat Staff
Dr. Hibret Tilahun, Global Project Director / Chief of Party
Dr. Kathy Stamidis, Senior Technical Advisor, MEAL
Dr. Innocent Rwego, Senior Advisor, GHSA
Asha Plattner Belsan, Program Manager
Gena Thomas, Advisor, Communications & Knowledge Management
Judy Ross, Senior Finance Officer
Dominika Cadotte, Senior Grant & Contract Officer
Support where it’s needed most.
Select a country below to find out more about our efforts and the real people on the front lines.
Graduated Countries
ANGOLA
BANGLADESH
NEPAL
The Global Health Security Agenda
The Global Health Security Agenda was launched in February 2014 to advance a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats, to bring together nations from all over the world to make new, concrete commitments, and to elevate global health security as a national leaders-level priority. The G7 endorsed the GHSA in June 2014. Since 2016, over 67 countries have signed on to become members on the GHSA. Through a partnership of nations, international organizations, and non-governmental stakeholders, GHSA facilitates collaborative, capacity-building efforts to achieve specific and measurable targets around biological threats, while accelerating achievement of the core capacities required by the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Health Regulations (IHR), the World Organization of Animal Health’s (OIE) Performance of Veterinary Services Pathway, and other relevant global health security frameworks. Achievement of progress towards fulfilling IHR is evaluated by the Joint External Evaluation Tool 2.0.
In 2019, the CGPP program countries of Kenya and Ethiopia integrated national health security priorities to strengthen country capacity to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to infectious disease outbreaks and epidemic threats in communities at heightened risk. Through a multi-sectoral, One Health approach, the program leverages existing capacities that focus on the training and support of community health workers, outbreak response planning, community-based surveillance, and risk communication to promote global health security as a local, national, and international priority.
Latest Resources
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CGPP House to House Community Outreach Protocol
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CGPP Supplement Publication in AJTMH
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CGPP South Sudan Supports Training of COVID-19 Responders
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CORE Group Polio Project – Annual Report FY20
CORE Group Polio Project External Evaluation 2019
The Critical Role and Evaluation of Community Mobilizers in
Polio Eradication in Remote Settings
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CGPP Nigeria’s Country Experience
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CGPP Ethiopia Towards Eradicating Polio
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Community Mobilization Coordinators
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Strengthening Community Surveillance Through Local Healers
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Improving Community Health: A CGPP Model That Works
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An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure
