The Context

In 2020, UNICEF Headquarters launched its organisational shift from Communications for Development (C4D) to Social and Behaviour Change (SBC). As part of implementing the organisational shift, UNICEF HQ has identified countries to be part of the early adopters program and UNICEF Pacific was one of the chosen early adopters.

UNICEF Pacific covers 14 islands (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu). The main priorities of UNICEF are related to achieving child-sensitive SDGs and addressing social and structural causes of child deprivations. The priorities of each UNICEF section that participated in the TOT training are:

• Wash: Strengthening i) public and private national and subnational systems to deliver safe water and sanitation services to families and ii) increase knowledge in safe WASH practices.

• Health: Improving the quality and care of children and maternal health by decreasing child mortality and morbidity.

• Nutrition: Improving nutrition by decreasing malnutrition, anaemia, and overweight/obesity in children and women.

• Education: Increasing i) children’s access to quality and inclusive basic education and learning opportunities and ii) children’s positive learning outcomes and developing transferable skills

• Child Protection: Reducing violence against children at home, school, online, and in communities, sexual abuse, violence against women/intimate partner violence, family separation, and child labour/marriage

UNICEF Pacific’s multi-country programme (2023-2024) identified the SBC section as an area to strengthen. To support UNICEF Pacific in strengthening their SBC section, MAGENTA developed a bespoke SBC course covering (Behavioural research, Designing SBC interventions, Implementing SBC interventions, SBC theories and principles, and M&E for SBC) and delivered a TOT.

Objectives

The primary objectives of this programme were to:

1. Increase the skills and knowledge of SBC for UNICEF Pacific country and sub-regional office.

2. Develop a comprehensive SBC capacity-building package, and deliver Training-of-Trainers workshops to SBC champions from across the region to roll out further implementation of the courses.

What we did/ Methodology

1. Inception Phase: MAGENTA identified key case studies for five programmatic sections:

   • WASH: Promoting the installation and use of toilets in the home

   • Nutrition: Decreasing childhood obesity

   • Education: Increasing enrolment in early childhood education centres

   • Child Protection: Increasing positive parenting practices

   • Health: Promoting HPV vaccine uptake

   • MAGENTA also developed desk reviews for each of the UNICEF sections (WASH, Child Protection, Health, Nutrition, and Education) in order to identify and understand the current context and thematic relevance to UNICEF

2. Creation of Modular Plan: Based on the inception phase, MAGENTA utilised a mixed methods pedagogical approach to design and develop the creation of the Modular Plan, which identified learning objectives for each course. The Modular Plan includes learning objectives, theories, processes, and applications to increase knowledge and confidence in applying the learned theories and processes per course.

3. Course Development:

   • Leveraging MAGENTA’s SBC expertise, our teams developed five bespoke packages (SBC Theories & Principles, Behavioural Research, Designing SBC Interventions, Implementing SBC Interventions, and M&E SBC ).

   • Using contextualised images, examples and learning materials including videos, exercises and activities, MAGENTA produced full courses with facilitator notes. Each course follows MAGENTA’s tell, show, do approach (define, outline, give examples and exercises, and then assess comprehension & capacity) and was underpinned by adult learning best practices and principles

4. Training of Trainers: MAGENTA developed a five-day SBC Training-of-Trainers package across all course modules with activities, exercises, and contextualised examples across the five UNICEF sections. As part of the TOT packages, MAGENTA conducted a five-day in-person capacity-building workshop series. During the workshop, the participants were organised into groups on a specific topic to apply their learning on priority target behaviours for UNICEF. They then had to present to the rest of the participants and receive peer review and feedback from UNICEF staff and MAGENTA’s facilitators. Additionally, participants took a pre-and post-assessment to identify increases in skills and confidence in conducting trainings.

Impact

The capacity training will support UNICEF Pacific with its shift from C4D to SBC. The responses from the participants, and findings from the pre-and post-assessments, reveal that there has already been an increase in positive perception of SBC and how it should be embedded across programmatic work. Many participants expressed their excitement and eagerness to incorporate SBC into their activities and programmes. The training materials will be utilised and disseminated by UNICEF to upskill their Pacific Island counterparts and stakeholders in order to strengthen the impact of their programming in SBC. The trainings conducted by UNICEF Pacific and MAGENTA brought together programme and SBC staff from across the region to form an SBC champion cohort which will strengthen the incorporation of SBC into programmes and activities.