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.
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Breakthrough ACTION is a partnership working worldwide to advance the practice of social and behaviour change (SBC) and to foster positive social norms, including gender-equitable norms, for improved health and development outcomes. In this Drum Beat edition, we spotlight the work of the organisations collaborating in this 5-year cooperative agreement.
1.Malaria Social and Behaviour Change Program Guidance in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic Breakthrough ACTION hosts the Secretariat for the RBM (Roll Back Malaria) SBC Working Group, which developed the Guidance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This document is meant to complement guidance issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Malaria Program (GMP) on April 9 2020. The resource identifies general behavioural considerations for implementation of the WHO GMP guidance, as well as corresponding malaria SBC recommendations for campaign-style malaria prevention interventions and malaria service delivery interventions. Information on factors such as channel selection, alternative activities, rumours and stigma, and gender is also included. [Apr 2020]
2.Synthesized Guidance for COVID-19 Message Development From Breakthrough ACTION, this living digital document is designed to support the development of messages and materials needed for communication interventions around COVID-19. It aims to provide a synthesised, indexed reference of accurate, standardised COVID-19 information - in what is meant to be clear, simple language - for programme staff designing or implementing COVID-19 risk communication messages or community engagement activities. [2020]
3.READY: Global Readiness for Major Outbreak Response Launched in 2018, the 3-year READY initiative is working to build global capacity to respond to major outbreaks of infectious disease that rise to the level of a humanitarian emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It is funded by the USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and is implemented by a consortium led by Save the Children (including CCP). The integrated, multi-sectoral response approach at the centre of these efforts involves addressing the holistic needs of outbreak-affected communities, with community engagement and communications prioritised. The key thread running throughout READY is the effort to integrate SBC into outbreak preparedness, including tools and processes to better leverage community systems and networks.
4.Global Health: Newborn Legacy Launched in 2000 with support from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Saving Newborn Lives (SNL) is Save the Children's flagship newborn health programme of research, learning, advocacy, and resource mobilisation at global and country levels. This document looks at the SNL initiative over an 18-year period, exploring how it helped put newborn health on the global policy agenda and sparked research to identify the burden and causes of newborn deaths. [Jul 2019]
5.Not Only Informed. Confident. [Não apenas consciente, mas confiante.] In late 2018-2019, ThinkPlace undertook a rapid co-design-prototyping-testing process in an effort to make sexual health consultation for adolescent girls and young women in Gaza, Mozambique, more patient-centric. The result was redesign of the tools and approach healthcare providers use in counselling their young patients. The goal was improve the patient experience in order to build confidence in choice of contraceptive method, thereby increasing FP uptake and reducing the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.
6.Our Languages Matter In late 2017, ThinkPlace was engaged by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council and Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) to create and run a process to encourage and facilitate greater inclusion of Aboriginal people, language, and custom in place-naming throughout Victoria, Australia. The goal of the "Our Languages Matter" programme of workshops was not only to address past and present wrongs through a naming practice that truthfully reflects Australia's complex history but also to help all Australians be better connected to the land they are living in.
7.Barriers to Provision of Respectful Maternity Care in Zambia: Results from a Qualitative Study through the Lens of Behavioral Science by Jana Smith, Rachel Banay, Emily Zimmerman, Vivien Caetano, Maurice Musheke, and Ameck KamangaThis study applies a behavioural science lens to identify features of the local context that drive disrespectful and abusive care, documenting the experience of disrespectful and abusive care in Zambia, where previous work on this topic has been limited. A related programmatic research brief takes the research further and explains what the team did to develop possible solutions to address the contextual features discovered during diagnosis. [Jan 2020]
8.A Combined Behavioral Economics and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention to Reduce Alcohol Use and Intimate Partner Violence Among Couples in Bengaluru, India: Results of a Pilot Study by Miriam Hartmann, Saugato Datta, Erica N. Browne, Prarthana Appaiah, Rachel Banay, Vivien Caetano, Rosii Floreak, Hannah Spring, Anuradha Sreevasthsa, Susan Thomas, Sumithra Selvam, and Krishnamachari SrinivasanEvidence shows that hazardous alcohol use is a contributing factor to intimate partner violence (IPV) occurrence and severity in both developed and developing country settings. This pilot study from RTI International, ideas42, and St. John's Research Institute tested a 1-month layperson-led intervention using contingency management (the provision of small financial incentives to promote behaviour change) and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) (in the form of behavioural couples therapy, or BCT) to reduce hazardous alcohol use and IPV in Bengaluru, India. [Jan 2020]
9.Transform/PHARE With USAID funding, this 5-year (2014-2019) programme sought to generate creative, innovative, and evidence-based SBC strategies that address barriers to modern contraceptive use, transform attitudes about reproductive health (RH), and promote FP in West Africa. Led by Population Services International (PSI), in collaboration with its partners Camber Collective, IDEO.org, and YLabs, the project introduced practices from marketing, advertising, human-centred design (HCD), and behavioural economics (BE) to strengthen FP-related behaviour change programming. A cross-cutting gender lens underlies all 4 themes: audience segmentation; male engagement; provider behaviour change; and cross-sectoral SBC.
10.Using Marketing Science to Understand Contraceptive Demand in High-Fertility Niger by Sarah L. Dalglish, Jessica Vandermark, Clémentine Rossier, Adama Kemou, and Hope NeighborThis article provides a case study of a demand analysis of FP in Niger, based on research conducted by Hope Consulting (now part of Camber Collective). Its objective is to provide strategic recommendations to help policymakers achieve Nigerien national FP goals by informing communication campaigns, product innovation, pricing, and choice of distribution channels. [Nov 2018]
11.Intersections of Intimate Partner Violence and Violence against Children: Expert Perspectives on Improving Service Coordination in Kampala, Uganda by Mara Steinhaus, Maureen Nakirunda, Kristina Vlahovicova, Ruti Levtov, Deborah Nakisuyi, and Cleopatra MugyenyiEvidence from International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) Central Uganda and other studies show that IPV and violence against children (VAC) frequently co-occur. Conducted in Kampala, Uganda, this qualitative study explores the intersection of IPV and VAC from the perspective of service providers in order to understand perceptions about shared risk factors, common consequences, cycles of violence, and barriers and opportunities for collaboration. IMAGES is a component of the Men and Gender Equality Policy Project coordinated by ICRW and Promundo-US. [2019]
12.COVID-19 and Child, Early and Forced Marriage: An Agenda for Action This brief on child marriage and COVID-19, developed by Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, provides insights, recommendations, and resources for responding to the needs of adolescent girls during the COVID-19 crisis and recovery period. It focuses on how adolescent girls, particularly those at risk of marriage or already-married girls, will be affected in the short- and longer-term. The brief is intended for development partners, including government and civil society organisations (CSOs). ICRW has been involved in the Girls Not Brides partnership since its inception. [Apr 2020]
13.Creating Mobile Health Solutions for Behaviour Change: A Study of Eight Services in the mNutrition Initiative Portfolio by Kim Viljoen and Tobias WackerSeveral Viamo case studies are included in this report from GSMA mHealth, frog, and Altai Consulting, which presents key findings on the implementation of the GSMA mHealth programme, as well as mHealth service design and nutrition behaviour change outcomes. These activities are being carried out under the UK-aid-funded mNutrition Initiative, which has been pursuing a HCD and iterative product optimisation approach across across 8 sub-Saharan African markets. For example, in Malawi, following launch of Airtel 321, an interactive voice response (IVR) service. Following service launch, Viamo undertook service improvement based on user testing. According to GSMA, since these changes were implemented, the percentage of users who reported to be implementing appropriate nutrition practices increased from 49% to 70%. [Apr 2018]
14.Use of Interactive Voice Response Technology to Address Barriers to Fistula Care in Nigeria and Uganda by Vandana Tripathi, Elly Arnoff, Benjamin Bellows, and Pooja SripadDigital health technologies have the potential to address maternal health needs, yet there are challenges with their use in low-resource settings. This study documents the Fistula Care Plus (FC+) project's process of developing and implementing a fistula screening and referral hotline using Viamo's IVR technology in Ebonyi and Katsina states in Nigeria and Kalungu district in Uganda, and it describes service usage results and stakeholder perspectives associated with the hotline. [Apr 2020]
What kinds of challenges and opportunities infuse your communication and media development, social and behavioural change work? This survey is a chance for you to let us know! We will report back on results and trends so you can gain insights from your peers in the network. Click here to lend your voice.
The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.
Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Send to drumbeat@comminit.com