Digital Community Engagement (DCE) is UNICEF's always-on system for building vaccine confidence and countering misinformation in polio-endemic, outbreak, and surveillance countries. The DCE Unit, part of UNICEF Polio SBC, supports country offices with social listening dashboards, persona-based creative, AI-enabled misinformation response, and direct one-to-one engagement at scale.
For polio SBC practitioners, country office staff, and partners — what DCE is, what it offers, and how to access it.
How DCE works — Understand, Plan, Act
01 — UNDERSTAND
Listen at scale
Social listening tools monitor more than 200 social, search, and content platforms in 187 languages. Text, image, video, radio, podcast, and meme content is processed end-to-end in 1–2 minutes.
The Polio Pulse public surface hosts 121 narrative analyses across 12 priority languages, classified by geography and theme.
02 — PLAN
Move from data to action
Insights move from the listening layer into a planning layer organised around five strategic pillars: anticipating misinformation, cultivating trust, mobilising community voices, activating one-to-one connections, and enabling whole-child health.
03 — ACT
Deploy and measure
DCE deploys persona-based digital content, runs the Shield (rapid reactive response), supports country trainings (Afghanistan, MENA), and runs RapidPro infolines for direct one-to-one engagement.
Every counter-narrative and Pulse analysis is reviewed by a human analyst — AI accelerates, doesn't replace.
The five pillars of DCE in 2026
01 THE SHIELD Anticipate & Counter MisinformationReal-time AI-enabled detection of emerging misinformation paired with rapid, emotionally resonant response. | 02 THE CIRCLE Cultivate TrustAn always-on emotional creative platform — "Every child belongs inside the Circle of Protection" — sustained between campaigns. |
03 THE COMMUNITY Mobilize & AmplifyHyper-segmented persona-based content for mothers, fathers, grandparents, youth, community and religious leaders, healthcare workers. | 04 THE CONNECTION Activate One-to-OneDirect, personalised digital communication via RapidPro — campaign exposure to enrolment to two-way dialogue. |
05 THE GOAL Enable Whole Child HealthPosition polio vaccination within broader child-health initiatives (Gavi, WASH, WHO, EPI). Polio-only messaging is no longer enough. |
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What DCE offers country offices
DCE's services are available to all UNICEF polio outbreak, endemic, and surveillance countries.
01 · LISTENING Custom social listening dashboards Active in 34 countries. Bundled with the Infodemic Assistant. | 02 · AI The Infodemic Assistant AI agent trained on DCE operational guidelines and ten years of Poliokit SBC literature — embedded in each dashboard. |
03 · CREATIVE Always-on Circle of Protection creative Persona-based content for seven audience segments in priority countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria). | 04 · ENGAGEMENT RapidPro infolines One-to-one engagement and direct efficacy measurement — scoping to expand from Afghanistan in 2026. |
05 · TRAINING Misinformation management training Including the Afghanistan two-day national training with NEOC (March 2026) and the MENA International Polio SBC Training. | 06 · DEPLOYMENT Rapid community-listening deployment As demonstrated in Tanzania (March 2026) — DCE deployed a mobile-phone tool with the Tanzanian Red Cross within 24 hours. |
07 · KNOWLEDGE Knowledge products Monthly DCE Newsletter, the Polio Digital Messaging Guide, country case studies, and quarterly contributions to the Global Polio SBC Newsletter. | 08 · ANALYTICS Research & analytics Ad-hoc misinformation deep-dives, country-level audience analyses, and uInfluence network insights for partner programmes. |
To request a dashboard or scope support for your country office, contact [email protected].
Polio Pulse and the AI engine
Polio Pulse is DCE's public-facing social listening surface. It hosts 121 narrative analyses across 12 priority languages, classified by geography (endemic vs. outbreak) and theme (vaccine safety, programme legitimacy, conflict, eradication progress, alternative remedies, more).
Behind Pulse sits a fully internal AI engine. End-to-end latency: 1–2 minutes. Multimodal content — images, video, radio, podcasts, memes — is transcribed and analysed alongside text. LLM Insights tracks how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok answer vaccination questions — a channel no traditional media monitoring covers.
AI is a tool for analysts, not a replacement for them. Every counter-narrative, every published Pulse analysis, every brief is reviewed by the DCE team.
Go deeper
👂 Social Listening & Polio Pulse
How DCE listens, what Pulse offers, how to read an analysis. Risk scoring, LLM Insights.
🛡️ Misinformation Response
Detect → Classify → Respond → Amplify → Measure. Trusted local voices. EAST framework.
🤖 AI Tools for SBC
The Infodemic Assistant. Sustainable AI, ethics, what country offices can use today.
🌍 Country Playbooks
Afghanistan · Pakistan · Tanzania · PNG · Lake Chad Basin. Practical examples to adapt.
DCE in the field
🇹🇿 Tanzania · March 2026
The silence that wasn't silent
When poliovirus was detected in Mwanza wastewater, online listening showed a calm environment — but vaccinators began reporting refusals on day one. DCE deployed a rapid community-listening tool with the Tanzanian Red Cross within 24 hours.
🇦🇫 Afghanistan · March 2026
Two-day national training in Kabul
Digital Community Engagement and misinformation management, delivered jointly with the Communications Working Group under the National Emergency Operations Center. Outputs include a refusal management toolkit and three new task forces.
🇵🇰 Pakistan · April 2026
Why so many doses?
How strategic timing and the Circle of Protection concept addressed one of polio's most persistent communication challenges: caregivers asking why their children need so many doses.
DCE Newsletter
Monthly
For polio SBC practitioners and country teams. Features a single anchor story per issue, AI updates, fresh insights, country campaign performance, and what's coming next.
Browse all issues →