Training manual on basic monitoring and evaluation of social and behavior change communication health programs

The Population Council confronts critical health and development issues—from stopping the spread of HIV to improving reproductive health and ensuring that young people lead full and productive lives. Through biomedical, social science, and public health research in 50 countries, we work with our partners to deliver solutions that lead to more effective policies, programs, and technologies that improve lives around the world. Established in 1952 and headquartered in New York, the Council is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization governed by an international board of trustees. 1 Introduction Social and behavior change communication (SBCC) interventions are increasingly seen as the key interventions for addressing social and cultural barriers and achieving goals laid out for health programs. States have the responsibility to plan and implement SBCC activities. Focus on mass media, community mobilization and interpersonal communication is increasingly gaining importance as SBCC interventions in the State Project Implementation Plans (PIPs) with increasing resource allocation to achieve the objectives. Often these interventions are not evidence based and especially for mass media it is mistakenly assumed that the interventions will benefit all equally. Though monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of overall National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is considered important, M&E of SBCC interventions is limited. Lack of trained and skilled human resources for M&E has been a limitation in general. This demands a serious effort to build capacity of M&E personnel to monitor and evaluate performance of SBCC interventions in terms of reach and effectiveness among intended audiences. Improving Healthy Behaviors Program (IHBP) of FHI360, funded by USAID, aims to provide technical assistance to strengthen capacities to monitor and evaluate SBCC intervention for maternal health, family planning, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS at of public program managers at national, state and district level. The project is coordinating with National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), and the State Institute of Health and Family Welfare (SIHFW) to build the trainers capabilities within the state in this area. The Population Council will train a cadre of master trainers on M&E of SBCC activities at the national and state level who would further build capacity of human resources responsible for M&E of SBCC activities within the state at the district level. To address the capacity building initiative in M&E of SBCC intervention, a 'Training Manual on Basic Monitoring and Evaluation of Social and Behavior Change Communication Health Programs' is prepared. The key personnel trained in this initiative will include master …