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Behavior Change Communication in Developing Countries

AIR implements behavior change communication programs that build the capacity of a developing country’s staff to conduct research and to design and implement information campaigns. These campaigns result in changed community behaviors based on the unique and culturally appropriate aspects of each community. For example, improvements in community health often depend on changing behaviors among community residents. Reducing diarrheal disease often requires community involvement to change how the community accesses and stores water, as well as how it practices hygiene. Reducing illness and death due to malaria in a community may have more to do with community mobilization to change attitudes about the use of bed-nets than to a reduction of mosquitoes. In order to change these behaviors, research identifies the reasons behind the current behavior. Information is also disseminated that aims to change the way perceptions about risk, danger, and incentives inform behavior.

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Recent Projects

• Zambia’s Community Health and Nutrition, Gender and Education Support 2 Program (CHANGES2)

  

  USAID/Zambia's CHANGES2 Program was a major education support activity in the Zambian Ministry of Education (MOE). CHANGES2 strengthened teachers’ classroom pedagogical and leadership skills with a special focus on school health and nutrition, as well as HIV and AIDS prevention and mitigation.

• Reducing Exploitive Child Labor in Mozambique (RECLAIM)

  

  RECLAIM withdrew/prevented approximately 2,960 children from exploitive child labor by enrolling them in either formal or vocational education programs, and provided income generation alternatives to 500 women.