The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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CIOMS Guide to Vaccine Safety Communication

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The CIOMS Guide to Vaccine Safety Communication provides an overview of strategic communication issues faced by medicines regulators, those responsible for vaccination policies and programmes and other stakeholders when dealing with:

    the launch of newly-developed vaccines for the first time to market,
    the introduction of current or underutilized vaccines into new countries, regions, or populations, and
    the handling of any new safety issue arising during the life-cycle of a vaccine.

Sourcing from existing guidance documents and compiling recommendations relevant from a regulatory perspective, the Guide provides a common ground in a way that has not been achieved otherwise at global level. The Guide stresses the fundamental importance of regulatory bodies having a system in place with skilled persons who can efficiently run vaccine safety communication in collaboration with stakeholders. It presents information and examples with colour-coding for quick access to three levels of guidance and offers a CIOMS template to use to create a Vaccine Safety Communication Plan.

In 2017, the CIOMS Working Group on Vaccine Safety (WG) issued a report  CIOMS Guide to Active Vaccine Safety Surveillance (Guide AVSS), offering a practical step-by-step approach and a graphic algorithm to aid immunization professionals and decision-makers in determining the best course of action when confronting such challenges.

This new CIOMS Guide to Vaccine Safety Communication stemmed from topic group 3 of the same WG which brought together, in a unique forum, pharmacovigilance specialists and other experts from regulatory and public health authorities, the World Health Organization, and academia as well as manufacturers in emerging and industrialized countries. It presents recommendations for vaccine safety communication with a specific focus on regulatory bodies.

A number of communication guidance documents already exist for immunization programmes covering how to manage communication when an adverse event occurs. Few have thus far been issued addressing the specific needs of regulatory bodies – whether they be established authorities in high-income countries or developing authorities in resource-limited countries. Little has been published for these groups in relation to communication about risks, uncertainties, safety and safe use of the vaccine products they license. This CIOMS report aims to fill this gap.