Advocacy & Behavior Change Communications

To establish high quality services, reduce the risk of needle stick injury among health personnel, and reduce unnecessary injections, MMIS works with authorities to revise essential medicines lists and treatment guidelines to support the use of non-injectable formulations. Subsequent activities target the public and informal injection providers to create demand for only those injections that are safe and necessary.

MMIS works toward creating a social norm in which injections are used judiciously. The advocacy strategy builds on qualitative research conducted during the initial phase and focuses on practices and attitudes of prescribers and providers of injections. In partnership with the national injection safety groups and others working in HIV/AIDS prevention, the project will work within the public sector and with health professional associations, faith-based medical associations, and academic institutions to expand into the private sector and pre-service education. The initial BCC focus is on health personnel for two reasons: first, high quality services must be in place before building demand for them; and second, health personnel actions are extremely influential to patients and communities.

Initial advocacy efforts will be geared toward gaining support for alternatives to injections and ensuring the concomitant material support. MMIS works with authorities to revise essential medicines lists and standard treatment guidelines to support the use of non-injectable formulations. As support for alternative treatments builds, the project expands its scope of advocacy efforts to the general public. Informing and influencing the public with activities such as interactive group discussion or trials of improved practices (TIPs) are conducted to change health worker and community expectations. The approach requires segmenting different audiences and working with them in a stepwise fashion, from early to later acceptors of alternative practices, to deliberately expand a base of support.

Program Highlights

South-to-South, Cross-Program Collaboration in BCC: Kenya and Nigeria
MMIS supports the exchange of experiences, tools, and information across country programs to build on exiting program knowledge. One example of this exchange was a recent behavior change communications workshop at which the Kenyan BCC advisor facilitated a workshop for developing and implementing a BCC strategy for MMIS Nigeria and its partners. The workshop resulted in a wide range of BCC products ready for field-testing in Nigeria program districts.

World Bank’s MAP and MMIS Forge Partnership in Rwanda
The Rwanda MMIS team and World Bank Multi-sectoral AIDS Project (MAP) have forged a partnership whereby MAP provides injection safety and protective equipment supplies in addition to funding the construction of incinerators in all shared intervention health districts. MMIS is responsible for training workshops, supervision visits and construction of needle pits in these areas, and an operation plan of collaboration has been developed and agreed upon by both projects.