A lack of knowledge or understanding is often not the main gap or motivator for many behaviours. People practice certain behaviors when they believe them.

Myths, misconception, cultural practices, and other obstacles including cost, location and availability are key barriers that can prevent change.

Key influencers of primary target audiences play a major role in influencing behaviour change.

Behaviour change approaches are essential to foundational cross-cutting change strategies for the achievement of programme results. Therefore, we take a balanced approach in our programming with supply and demand side interventions.

Our Behaviour Changes Interventions (BCI) design process:

1. Commissions qualitative formative research to get the relevant information on knowledge, behaviours, practices, and services through a gender lens, to gain insight into the socio-cultural context of the targeted areas.
2. Develops an innovative, gender-responsive, and context-specific effective BCI strategy based on the research findings.
3. Specifies the target audience segments for profiling and behaviour analysis to select a specific behaviour for the target audience to change.
4. Identifies the benefits, opportunities and challenges that influence the audience’s behaviour, and specify behaviour change objectives.
5. Defines the intervention and marketing mix of behaviour change communication: product, price, place, promotion, and channels in the public and private sectors.
6. Engages expert agencies in creating high-level communication campaigns and communication materials that fit program objectives and leverage emotional appeals.

Examples of our BCI include:

• Targeting mothers-in-law or other key decision makers to encourage the young mothers in their family not to wait to seek treatment for diarrhoea with zinc and oral rehydration salts.
• Approaching fathers and other caregivers in the family to bring their children to the session site to ensure administration of vitamin A supplementation.
• Mobilizing health service providers, husbands, and family members to support mothers in early initiation of breastfeeding after child’s birth and ensuring exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months.

We create BCC material for our programs, such as:

• Vitamin A for children under five
• Zinc and Oral Rehydration Salts promotion for diarrhoea management for children under five
• Adolescent nutrition
• Maternal health and nutrition
• Pregnant women and newborn care
• Infant and young child nutrition
• Food fortification, including universal salt iodization, double-fortified salt, and cereal grain fortification for the general population

We create a variety of communication products to suit the context in which they will be used, including:

• Training videos, jingles, radio advertisements
• WhatsApp messages and video, posters and stickers with GIFs and animated GIFs
• Flip books, brochures, handheld mirror, double-sided pouch with messages to keep the IFA tablets, key-ring, name plates, kiosk, stickers, badges
• Hopscotch game, Trump cards