Social and Behavior Change and the Next Big Thing: Mainstreaming SBC to Solve the World’s Hardest Problems
This piece was developed with contributions from Richard Adupong, SBC and communications advisor; Brian Mdawida, SBC integration advisor; and Christina Wakefield, senior advisor, SBC
“In recent years, social and behavior change has become increasingly relevant, professionalized, and evidence-driven. Our field knows how to do SBC well. But we need to stop focusing on short-term investments in SBC independent of other public health efforts. We need to move SBC out of its silo and mainstream the use of social and behavioral sciences to tackle our world’s hardest problems and better use our existing solutions.” — Brian Mdawida, Senior SBC Lead, USAID Nawiri Project/JSI Behavior Initiative.
Brian and a large delegation of colleagues from JSI’s Behavior Initiative representing 10 African countries recently showcased JSI’s work in a panel discussion titled, “What’s the Next Big Thing for SBC?” during the African Society for SBC Summit, held virtually from July 2–5.
Today’s world is marked by environmental, humanitarian, and political crises unfolding alongside dazzling achievements in the arts, technology, medicine, and science — and human behavior drives both these crises and achievements. Solving our problems and catalyzing progress therefore requires social and behavior change (SBC), but to be effective, it cannot remain in a silo. What then is the next big thing for SBC? For JSI, it is applying SBC to challenges and priorities beyond those considered explicitly behavioral in nature.
JSI’s unique approach has long focused on mainstreaming SBC, integrating it not only into our community programming, but also in our work on health systems strengthening, logistics, livelihoods, and policy reform. SBC does not require a patented “process” but rather a logical, intentional partner alignment with a collectively defined set of evidence-informed behavioral outcomes.
JSI’s SBC approach starts by connecting and supporting all relevant stakeholders at the right time in the right place with the right data to define, achieve, and measure the behavioral outcomes that matter to them. Additionally, we facilitate capacity bridging–strengthening and exchanging capacity among partners –to ensure that power starts and stays with local organizations and communities. This results in pathways to change behaviors that are aligned with systems at all levels (community, health, political, and otherwise) and investments that are sustained beyond the life of a project. We start with what exists and connect local stakeholders’ assets with global best practices. We use our expertise in data use, visualization, and analytics to improve how we use behavioral insights to make decisions and analyze and monitor progress.
SBC should help people achieve their goals and create respectful, healthy partnerships among all actors within systems. Our approach facilitates this by identifying both what we know and what we don’t know about why people practice certain behaviors to help local partners to make decisions. We take a holistic and systems-driven perspective, identifying and revitalizing connections among education, democracy, governance, and health that are critical to motivating locally led SBC.
Our approach delivers results. Our work to end acute malnutrition in Northern Kenya as part of the Nawiri project is supporting county governments to expand Integrated Management of Childhood Illness policies and protocols focused on improving the quality and frequency of provider counseling on recuperative feeding. In Ghana, our team worked with private sector utility providers to find ways they could support water, sanitation, and hygiene practices, including delivering prompt service and establishing emergency funds for infrastructure needs. Watch the video below to learn more about our SBC efforts across Africa.
JSI’s Behavior Initiative, founded in 2020 and comprising more than 90 specialists in 18 countries, is the hub for our SBC work. Our experts collaborate with colleagues across activity and technical areas to take SBC out of it’s silo and ensure strategies are woven throughout all we do. In 2022, JSI acquired The Manoff Group to amplify and expand our SBC expertise and resources, including signature approaches like behavior integration and Trials of Improved Practices.
Learn more about our SBC work.
