Agency for All
Improving Health & Well-Being by Increasing Power to Act
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Agency for All's exhibit at the 2023 African Social Marketing Association Conference. [Photo: Cristin Marona, Matchboxology]
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Agency for All at the first ever African Social Marketing Association Conference
With the School of Business Sciences at the University of Witwatersrand, Agency for All co-sponsored the first African Social Marketing Association Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa on April 24-26, 2023. The conference brought together international and regional organizations, the private sector, and academics working in social marketing, social and behavior change (SBC), and public health. Consortium partners Cristin Marona (Matchboxology), Paul Bukuluki (Makerere University), Sara Jewett Nieuwoudt (University of the Witwatersrand), and Maurice (Mo) Ocquaye (CORE Group) represented Agency for All with a project presentation, side event, and exhibition table.
The inaugural conference celebrated the official registration of the African Social Marketing Association (a new regional branch of the International Social Marketing Association), and provided valuable opportunities for networking and reflection on the successes and challenges the social marketing community has faced in the wake of the global pandemic and other health, climate, and economic changes. Alongside in-country experts, we explored how agency is positioned within social marketing discussions, especially private sector, and how Agency for All could be engaging in these spaces. Organizers plan to make this successful conference an annual event.
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Agency for All joins USAID "Ask the Experts" on Local Partnerships
On April 26, Agency for All consortium partners Dr. Paul Bukuluki (Makerere University) and Dr. JC Fotso (EVIHDAF) provided expert insight on how local research partnerships and agency can contribute to advancing health outcomes during a virtual panel discussion hosted by USAID.
YouthPower Webinar highlights tools on engaging men and boys
On May 3, on behalf of Agency for All, Courtney McLarnon and Francine Wood (GEH/UCSD) shared lessons learned from the Passages Project on a virtual webinar hosted by the YouthPower Gender Community of Practice. The webinar highlighted the importance of men and boys as allies and provided tools for reflection and action.
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Agency for All team with COMMIT Field Officers [Photo: Kezia Yonzon, Sambodhi]
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Snapshot: CAMBODIA
Assessment of COMMIT Program
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In June, Agency for All consortium partner, Sambodhi, will conclude work with USAID Cambodia and the Community Mobilization Initiatives to End Tuberculosis (COMMIT) project. Agency for All conducted a mid-term assessment for the COMMIT project, which seeks to improve early TB case finding, diagnosis and treatment in high-risk populations in underserved communities in Cambodia. Agency for All conducted key informant interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders, analyzed preliminary data of the national tuberculosis and COMMIT programs, and shared findings through three rounds of learning and dissemination sessions with USAID and implementing partners.
Key findings include a need to focus on sustaining the capacity built by the program, refine outreach strategies to include engaging the private sector in health, and intensify education and TB awareness in future messaging. The results and evidence gathered by the assessment were used to develop recommendations that will inform the design of a new USAID TB strategy in Cambodia to be implemented following the COMMIT project closed-out in 2024.
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March assessment workshop in Addis | |
Snapshot: ETHIOPIA
Assessment of SBC Programs
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In March, Agency for All consortium partner, CORE Group, hosted a workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to present results from an assessment of USAID-supported SBC projects in Ethiopia. Prior to the workshop, the assessment team gathered information from a document review and secondary analysis of project data and compared it to a list of SBC best practices related to systems thinking and complex-adaptive programming.
The preliminary results yielded several recommendations including the need to modify their theories of change; create a sustainable repository of SBC materials; conduct a scalability analysis; develop a clear community engagement strategy that is conceptually distinct from community mobilization; adopt an adaptation cycle that connects community engagement to supportive supervision and adaptive management; and include qualitative data and observations about social changes and norms-shifting activities.
These findings will be expanded and vetted in the next stage of the assessment and presented to stakeholders in July.
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| | Join us: Webinar discussion on Gender-Transformative Interventions Among Very Young Adolescents |
Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Time: 10:00 am (EDT)
| Agency for All consortium partners GEH/UCSD and Save the Children, in collaboration with the Global Early Adolescent Study, will share insights and lessons learned from the Growing Up GREAT! intervention during this webinar. Insights from two gender transformative approaches to working with very young adolescents (VYA) will inform Agency for All's work on social norms and increasing agency among VYA in Bangladesh and beyond. | | | |
| | You're invited: Agency for All to host skills-building session at Women Deliver in Kigali |
Date: Thursday, July 20, 2023
Time: 9:30-11:00 am
Place: Room MH3.2
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Alongside Breakthrough ACTION and Health Development Initiative Rwanda, the Agency for All consortium will host a skills-building session at Women Deliver called "Breaking the Binary: Strengthening sexual and gender minority inclusion in SRH." This event will explore the current state of sexual and gender minority inclusion in SRH research, programs, and services, focusing on low- and middle-income countries, and share tools and practices for strengthening inclusion across diverse country contexts. #WD2023
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| Introducing Harish Chand, South Asia Hub Coordinator |
Agency for All welcomes Mr. Harish Chand to his new role as South Asia Hub Coordinator. In this role, he will support the SBC implementers in the South Asian region to connect to and participate in Agency for All research and knowledge exchange activities.
Harish is a public health and nutrition professional with more than 25 years of experience in the development sector. He has held leadership roles with NGOs and is a member of various alliances and networks at the national level. He has a strong ability to liaison and coordinate with agencies, development partners, academia, CSOs, and NGOs.
Harish holds a Master’s degree in Sociology, post-graduate diploma in Public Health and Nutrition, and a post-graduate diploma in Management of Reproductive Child Health Programs. He is married with two wonderful boys.
| | | | Norms-Shifting on Social Media: A Review of Strategies to Shift Norms among Adolescents and Young Adults Online |
Recognizing the ‘black box’ of using social media as a program strategy and it’s influence on program outcomes, this paper makes an inventory of the strategies used for norms-shifting on social media–-either as stand-alone interventions or in the context of multi-layered SBC programs–-to propose a typology and identify evidence gaps behind these strategies.
| |  | Adapting and Validating the G-NORM (Gender Norms Scale) in Nepal: An Examination of How Gender Norms Are Associated with Agency and Reproductive Health Outcomes | This paper applies the previously tested G-NORM scale in India, exploring and advocating for an increase in understanding of the relationship between gender norms and agency in SRH research and programming. | | |
| | Breakthrough ACTION Launches NEW! SBC Learning Platform |
USAID’s Breakthrough ACTION project has launched a new learning platform to provide public health professionals with foundational knowledge and skills to incorporate new SBC methodologies into their work. The online courses and toolkits aim to increase SBC knowledge across a variety of health topics. SBC Learning Central will help institutionalize SBC approaches and create a critical mass of skilled practitioners and supportive decision makers worldwide. Most courses and toolkits are available in French and English.
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