This toolkit is funded as a part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership project, which includes an initiative to identify and address concerns among religious leaders and faith-based communities around vaccination. From 2020 to 2021, the project completed a global landscape analysis and key informant interviews of key efforts for engaging faith leaders in vaccination. The summary of findings and corresponding actionable recommendations that emerged from the analysis, identified a set of promising practices that could be synthesized into a toolkit to address the role that faith leaders can play in generating vaccine demand and addressing vaccine hesitancy, as it arises. Building on these efforts, focus group discussions were held with religious leaders to solicit their direct feedback on how faith communities can collaborate to generate vaccine demand and increase vaccine confidence.

This toolkit is designed to equip faith actors and related stakeholders—such as Ministries of Health, medical and scientific bodies, and non-profit organizations that partner with or work alongside faith actors—with the information and tools needed to raise awareness, reduce misinformation, and address barriers that prevent faith communities, in particular, from engaging in vaccination. Ultimately, this toolkit is intended to promote innovative partnerships that drive vaccine acceptance and uptake and to inspire increased strategic discussion and investment among stakeholders in the vaccine space. This document can aid individuals and entities working to enhance immunization coverage.