---
id: "coronavirus-smarter-crowdsourcing:strategies/Detect,support-and-amplify-existing-community-led-"
type: "GovLab policy strategy"
title: "Detect,support and amplify existing community-led initiatives and solutions."
url: "https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/detect,support-and-amplify-existing-community-led-"
summary: "Detect,support and amplify existing community-led initiatives and solutions."
source: "The GovLab (coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Detect,support and amplify existing community-led initiatives and solutions.

Detect,support and amplify existing community-led initiatives and solutions.

- Timeframe: 3-6 Months (medium)
- Audience: Civil Society, Vulnerable Populations, Organized Civil Society, Nonprofits
- Type: Communications, Vulnerable Populations
- Recommendation: [Engage the Public and Civil Society Organizations](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/recommendations/engage-the-public-and-civil-society-organizations)
- Part of: [Smarter Crowdsourcing in the Age of Coronavirus](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/)

## Actions governments should take

1. Identify community leaders and community groups in a given jurisdiction.
2. Conduct a community needs assessment that identifies community assets, including community organizations and assets that can be mobilized to support the response effort.
3. Establish formal relationships between the public health system and social service organizations.
4. Develop criteria that outlines profiles of organizations and people from the local community, that have the requisite knowledge of the community .
5. Meet with local authorities and key stakeholders (women, youths, older people) and discuss the importance of community-led initiatives.

## Examples from around the world

1. [During the 2014 – 2015 Ebola outbreak, thousands of community health workers were trained to serve as contact tracers. The community health workers were a crucial supplement to the existing public health workforce and helped to link the community to testing and treatment centers. The community health workers were important to the success of the program, not only because they increased the number of workers, but because they were able to help overcome the fear and lack of trust in the country’s health system during the outbreak An important lesson from the Liberia experience is to train contact tracers to pay attention to the power dynamics within society and how the daily lives of people are structured.](https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/articles/10.31646/gbio.69/)