Community Engagement Toolkit for CSID: Progress Report
Written by the CE4CSID team
Background
The Community Engagement for CSID (CE4CSID) Working Group was established to develop a toolkit to guide the CSID network on community engagement. The toolkit includes a set of practical resources and guidelines that can be used by researchers to successfully plan and integrate community engagement into their research programs.
Progress on the toolkit development
The team has drafted the outline of the toolkit clearly articulating its purpose. The toolkit will be developed as an interactive resource and the following sections of the toolkit are currently under development:
- Guidance on engaging with communities. Bringing in Asia and Africa perspectives to ensure that the guidelines are culturally relevant.
- Guidance on the responsible collection, storage and usage of data. The working group is also consulting other working groups focusing on the topic of data governance and ethics.
- Guidance on using photography and exhibition as a way of community engagement.
- Guidance on establishing working arrangements for community engagement such as Community Advisory Boards, Focus Group Discussions and awareness campaigns.
- Guidance and Templates for Monitoring and Evaluating community engagement
- Guidance on using social media for community engagement
- Guidance on dissemination of findings of a community engagement activity, and using community engagement to disseminate findings of a research project.
- Guidance on using a citizen science approach for community engagement.
- Road map for running a community engagement project
How others can get involved in the work
We anticipate the first version of the toolkit to be ready for presentation at the July regional convening in Southeast Asia and subsequently presented in the East Africa regional convening in August. This will enable the working group to open up discussion about practical uses of the toolkit and gather additional input from the participants.
The working group received requests from members of the CSID network to pilot and review the toolkit and this is being considered by the working group and final decision will be made by August 2026. We continue to welcome additional interests to contribute to the work by sending an email to [email protected].
Key learning so far
Lots out there on community engagement- but where does the magic happen? As we began this work, we were aware that lots of work has gone into community engagement. In fact as our proposal was reviewed, we were cautioned: “Concerned about engagement toolkits – often these do not do enough to provide local context and often they become a way of ‘green washing’ community/local resident involvement.”
This has continued to challenge us to do things differently i.e. synthesize all the literature out there and provide concrete guidance relevant to the CSID network. It also challenged us to develop our toolkit differently. We are bringing a community engagement approach to it! We are sharing the toolkit for review and input even before it is final, we are inviting others to pilot the toolkit and we are sharing the finances for the working group to fund the testing of the toolkit.
Each of the members of the working group brings unique expertise to the table. Our working group comprises people from Asia, Africa and America with representation from government, academia and civil society. Together, our joint expertise is the real value of working together. We are proud of the strong relationships we have established with each other which has led to mutual trust, respect and shared responsibility. The time difference has also taught us to figure out the best times to meet while accommodating each other.
Next steps
Our working group is doubling down on efforts to ensure we deliver a first draft of the toolkit in time for the Asia Regional event in July and other subsequent events. We hope to have a final toolkit, piloted and tested, before the end of 2026.