On World Health Day 2022, SOCIEUX+ reflects on its projects that impacted global well-being

World Health Day is celebrated annually on April 7th; the day the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded in 1948. This year’s theme is “Our Planet, Our Health”. On this day, global attention focuses on initiatives that keep humans and the planet healthy and which encourage societies to concentrate on well-being. Environmental problems such as air pollution, a lack of clean drinking water, and the resurgence of vector-borne diseases due to climate change all contribute to reducing the length and quality of human lives. Social practices such as smoking, extreme sedentarism, and unhealthy eating also contribute significantly to increases in noncommunicable diseases and lower quality of life. According to the WHO, well-being societies are “committed to achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological limits”, while a well-being economy “has human well-being, equity and ecological sustainability as its goals”. Normative action and sensitization push individual and societal demands for a new system of values that puts well-being – rather that economic revenue – at its core.

Last year, SOCIEUX+ responded to assistance requests by partner countries to deploy strategies that raise well-being in local populations, such as improving food consumption of school children in Zanzibar and raising awareness around healthy behaviours and lifestyles in Nigeria.

• In Zanzibar, the President’s Office for Regional Administration and Special Departments requested the assistance of SOCIEUX+ (Action 2020-19) to assess the extent to which the existing school feeding programme, providing daily meals the pre-primary pupils in Zanzibar, was likely to result in significant health and educational benefits for target children. As a result of this action, Zanzibar now has a comprehensive report on the governance and management of the school-feeding program. This includes concrete recommendations to improve the quality and delivery of meals in the pre-primary schools of Zanzibar. The recommendations refer to two main areas: the actual provision and delivery of school meals, which can be linked to the available food supply by local producers; and, the framing of a technical discussion on what a nutritious school meal should include. The cooperation with the local UNICEF office in Zanzibar was also key to the achievement of those results.

• The Nigerian National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO; Action 2020-22) engaged in a peer-to-peer dialogue with institutional and social communication experts from Europe to enhance staff capacity to conduct community-based information and sensitisation campaigns, particularly on health-related matters. The exchange consisted of a series of workshops providing a general-purpose methodology on social marketing, and the presentation of case studies on effective strategies to engage target audiences and influence behaviour for the improvement of general well-being and health outcomes. The selected case studies were based on EU and Nigerian good practices and included examples of communication campaigns to prevent and contain COVID-19 infections.

Social protection is one the four pillars of a well-being society, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), together with education and skills, health, and gender equality. Wherever social protection systems provide significant coverage, adequate benefits, and quality services, they are effective in reducing poverty and inequality and likely to improve public health. Furthermore, social protection systems support three fundamental drivers of well-being: autonomy, relatedness, and security. These drivers contribute to increasing people’s capabilities which, in Amartya Sen’s perspective, refers to “the various combinations of functionings (beings and doings) that a person can achieve (…) reflecting the person’s freedom to (…) choose from possible livings”. 

Gian Luca Portacolone
SOCIEUX+ Social Protection Coordinator