GH Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Activity

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to invest in a five-year cooperative agreement titled GH Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Activity to support countries in achieving desired improvements in health and development outcomes.

The GH SBC Activity will build upon current USAID investments in SBC research and programming, including both global and bilateral projects, to guide integration of SBC evidence and theory in development programming, support generation and use of new learning, strengthen local technical and organizational capacity, and drive local leadership of SBC programming for better, broader, and more sustainable results. The project will fulfill a global leadership function within SBC, working through new and existing partnerships to create opportunities for locally-driven, innovative, and cost-effective SBC programs; systematic integration of SBC best practices within public and private health systems; and generating, synthesizing, and catalyzing the application of evidence-based and theory-informed SBC in diverse program settings to accelerate achievement of global health and development goals.

The strategic objective of the project is to increase implementation of theory-informed, evidence-based, locally-led SBC programming. While focused primarily on health, the project may address SBC needs in other sectors, with particular attention to areas of potential complementarity such as environmental conservation, agriculture, food security, and nutrition. Within the health sector, the project will maintain a substantive but non-exclusive focus on family planning, reproductive health (FP/RH) and reproductive empowerment; malaria; and maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), with attention to emerging pandemic threats and other infectious diseases. Considerations of USAID priorities such as localization, gender integration, youth engagement/integration, health systems strengthening, the inclusion of LGBTQI+ people, the inclusion of people with physical and cognitive disabilities, engaging the voices, skills, and experiences of all including marginalized and underrepresented groups such as racial, ethnic, and Indigenous communities and climate change, will be a focus across the project.

Please see the Full GH Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Activity RFA under the "Related Documents" tab.