INTRODUCTION: Policy, Strategy, and Investment Implications - SBC Direct Impact Evidence

UNICEF, with support from The Communication Initiative (The CI), is leading a process to identify the most compelling and credible research data that demonstrate the direct impact of social change and behaviour change (SBC) strategies on priority development issues, including for UNICEF. That growing collection of evidence - and the criteria for that evidence to be included (e.g., must be published in a high-quality journal and have an extensive randomised controlled trial (RCT) or systematic review methodology - can be reviewed at this link.

The natural questions that flow from that evidence are:

• What are the policy implications for organisations?
• What are the strategy implications for SBC initiatives?
• What arguments flow for increased investment in SBC by bilaterals, foundations, UN agencies, and other funders?

This brief, initial set of notes seeks to identify and source from that impact data what should be those social change, community engagement, and behaviour change policy, strategic, and investment priorities.

These notes are presented for discussion and debate. We would encourage everyone to review the data (including monitoring it as the collection grows) and draw their own conclusions.

There are 5 major areas of focus below. For each, we have identified the key evidence and impact data that result in these themes being chosen and the policy, strategy, and investment argument implications that flow from those data.