Less is more: Prioritizing behaviors for effective multi-sectoral nutrition SBC
Summary:
High quality social and behavior change for good nutrition requires collaborative efforts across multiple sectors. To ensure that young children consume safe, affordable, and diverse food, social and behavior change (SBC) practitioners must identify and promote key behaviors within sectors such as: food systems and markets, food security, gender, water, sanitation and hygiene, and health. Prioritizing high-impact behaviors across sectors is a key step in designing high quality, effective SBC. This process maximizes program's time and resources, to focus on the highest impact behaviors which can lead to improved health and nutrition outcomes, and avoid oversaturating program participant groups with messages. This session will share a donor's perspective on prioritizing behaviors in multi-sectoral programs. These findings come from internal mid-term evaluations of five USAID's Office of Food for Peace-funded country activities, and an SBC-specific review of 11 grants in 8 countries. Lessons learned being willing to sacrifice quality for quantity. This was especially important for multi-sectoral program that addressed multiple behaviors at the same time. Recommendations include the need to support programs to prioritize behaviors through improved processes at the proposal and award stages as well as in SBC strategy design and implementation.
Background/Objectives:
High quality social and behavior change for good nutrition requires collaborative efforts across multiple sectors, including: food systems and markets, food security, gender, water, sanitation and hygiene, and health. Prioritizing high-impact behaviors between sectors is a key step in designing high quality, effective SBC. This process maximizes program's time and resources, and avoids over-saturating program participant groups. This session will share a donor's perspective on prioritizing behaviors in multi-sectoral programs based on findings from internal mid-term evaluations and an SBC review of USAID Food for Peace-funded development food security activities.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
USAID's Office of Food for Peace (FFP) is committed to applying the latest evidence and best practices in SBC to programs. FFP recently conducted internal mid-term evaluations of five development food security activities in Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Madagascar. FFP also requested the FANTA project to review SBC methods and approaches within 11 grants covering eight countries. This process involved a review of documents including annual reports, formative research studies, SBC strategies, and tools. The reviewers also conducted interviews with implementing partner staff and site visits. Findings from the internal mid-term evaluations and external SBC review have led USAID FFP to make several changes to its processes and awards.
Results/Lessons Learned:
These evaluations uncovered lessons important for FFP as well as other multi-sectoral SBC programs. Most programs included 8 to 10 behavior objectives; however, those with fewer achieved greater depth of focus. Programs with many behavior objectives were more likely to face problems with implementation quality and less likely to focus on sustainability of changed behaviors. Programs with prioritized behaviors were more likely to layer communication channels for enhanced impact. The challenging decisions on which behaviors to prioritize need to be part of SBC strategy design. FFP has made key changes to the awards and begun a 'Refine and Implement' approach, which emphasizes the need for partners to develop an initial theory of change. Partners receive one year to conduct studies, analyze behaviors inhibiting or promoting desired outcomes, and prioritize behaviors feasible for participant groups based on contextual analysis. Other practitioners should consider adopting behavior prioritization early in program design.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
Prioritizing behaviors is a growing challenge and opportunity for SBC as programs place greater emphasis on multi-sectoral initiatives. Each sector in a program hopes to address their own behaviors in SBC strategies and approaches, targeting the same group of participants with numerous messages. However, sacrificing quality for quantity will not lead to sustainable behavior change. Programs can adopt behavior prioritization behaviors during the design or refine phase for greatest impact. Changes in how donors and implementers structure program awards and design are important contributions to advance the field.
Abstract submitted by:
Lisa Sherburne - Manoff Group
Michael Manske - USAID
Laura Itzkowitz - USAID
Kelsey Torres - JSI
Fartun Yussuf - USAID
High quality social and behavior change for good nutrition requires collaborative efforts across multiple sectors. To ensure that young children consume safe, affordable, and diverse food, social and behavior change (SBC) practitioners must identify and promote key behaviors within sectors such as: food systems and markets, food security, gender, water, sanitation and hygiene, and health. Prioritizing high-impact behaviors across sectors is a key step in designing high quality, effective SBC. This process maximizes program's time and resources, to focus on the highest impact behaviors which can lead to improved health and nutrition outcomes, and avoid oversaturating program participant groups with messages. This session will share a donor's perspective on prioritizing behaviors in multi-sectoral programs. These findings come from internal mid-term evaluations of five USAID's Office of Food for Peace-funded country activities, and an SBC-specific review of 11 grants in 8 countries. Lessons learned being willing to sacrifice quality for quantity. This was especially important for multi-sectoral program that addressed multiple behaviors at the same time. Recommendations include the need to support programs to prioritize behaviors through improved processes at the proposal and award stages as well as in SBC strategy design and implementation.
Background/Objectives:
High quality social and behavior change for good nutrition requires collaborative efforts across multiple sectors, including: food systems and markets, food security, gender, water, sanitation and hygiene, and health. Prioritizing high-impact behaviors between sectors is a key step in designing high quality, effective SBC. This process maximizes program's time and resources, and avoids over-saturating program participant groups. This session will share a donor's perspective on prioritizing behaviors in multi-sectoral programs based on findings from internal mid-term evaluations and an SBC review of USAID Food for Peace-funded development food security activities.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
USAID's Office of Food for Peace (FFP) is committed to applying the latest evidence and best practices in SBC to programs. FFP recently conducted internal mid-term evaluations of five development food security activities in Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Madagascar. FFP also requested the FANTA project to review SBC methods and approaches within 11 grants covering eight countries. This process involved a review of documents including annual reports, formative research studies, SBC strategies, and tools. The reviewers also conducted interviews with implementing partner staff and site visits. Findings from the internal mid-term evaluations and external SBC review have led USAID FFP to make several changes to its processes and awards.
Results/Lessons Learned:
These evaluations uncovered lessons important for FFP as well as other multi-sectoral SBC programs. Most programs included 8 to 10 behavior objectives; however, those with fewer achieved greater depth of focus. Programs with many behavior objectives were more likely to face problems with implementation quality and less likely to focus on sustainability of changed behaviors. Programs with prioritized behaviors were more likely to layer communication channels for enhanced impact. The challenging decisions on which behaviors to prioritize need to be part of SBC strategy design. FFP has made key changes to the awards and begun a 'Refine and Implement' approach, which emphasizes the need for partners to develop an initial theory of change. Partners receive one year to conduct studies, analyze behaviors inhibiting or promoting desired outcomes, and prioritize behaviors feasible for participant groups based on contextual analysis. Other practitioners should consider adopting behavior prioritization early in program design.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
Prioritizing behaviors is a growing challenge and opportunity for SBC as programs place greater emphasis on multi-sectoral initiatives. Each sector in a program hopes to address their own behaviors in SBC strategies and approaches, targeting the same group of participants with numerous messages. However, sacrificing quality for quantity will not lead to sustainable behavior change. Programs can adopt behavior prioritization behaviors during the design or refine phase for greatest impact. Changes in how donors and implementers structure program awards and design are important contributions to advance the field.
Abstract submitted by:
Lisa Sherburne - Manoff Group
Michael Manske - USAID
Laura Itzkowitz - USAID
Kelsey Torres - JSI
Fartun Yussuf - USAID
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: USAID