WHO: Building Public Health Social Media Capacity in Laos

Public health communication in Laos increasingly happens on social media, yet the institutions responsible for it faced limited digital literacy, inconsistent social media strategies and a growing need to counter misinformation. For WHO the stakes were regional: health campaigns only work when the local bodies carrying them can reach and persuade people online.

WHO partnered with the Ministry of Health (CHSI) on a capacity building programme, and needed a partner who could turn a training brief into lasting, practical digital skills inside government health teams.

Ruder Finn Era's starting point was that a one-off lecture would change nothing. The programme was designed as a cycle of learning, applying and reviewing, so that participants worked on their own channels rather than on hypothetical examples.

The team delivered a customised curriculum of hands-on sessions covering social media audits, audience targeting, content creation and campaign optimisation, then followed the in-person trainings with virtual review sessions in which participants' real posts and campaigns were assessed against the framework they had learned.

The result was a cohort of health communicators able to plan and measure data driven communication, with improved social media performance and sustainable digital practices that outlast the training itself.