Communicate for Health Annual Report: Year 2

The project aimed to improve behavior change in family planning, water, sanitation, and hygiene, nutrition, maternal and child health, and malaria prevention and case management. The project worked with the Government of Ghana, Ghana Health Service Health Promotion Department, local Ghanaian partners, and international development partners to achieve three Expected Results (ERs). Improved behaviors that increase demand for key interventions (ER 1) was a major focus of the project in Year 2. The project launched the refreshed GoodLife, Live it Well campaign, which emphasizes collective responsibility for health and empowers different audiences to make health an everyday habit. The campaign was launched nationally on July 28, 2016, and was attended by over 700 dignitaries, stakeholders, and community members. The campaign included television and radio advertisements, posters, brochures, cue cards, and other media materials. Since the national launch, broadcast of campaign radio and television advertisements have continued to air on primetime and peak-time programs. The project also participated in other key media activities in Year 2, including the broadcast of a family planning advocacy video documentary entitled Ghana on the Rise: Investing in Population and Development, or ENGAGE, on national TV. The project worked with UNICEF to raise public awareness about cholera and funded air time for messages. The project is also working with the National Population Council, Department for International Development, and Palladium on integration of new GoodLife messages into the popular Ghanaian soap opera series entitled You Only Live Once, or YOLO. Not counting national news coverage, 43,771 TV and radio spots, programs, and interviews were aired during this reporting period. Improved HPD technical and organizational capacity (ER 2) was another key focus of the project in Year 2. The project conducted a week-long Change Agent Development Program (CADP) for 23 SBCC practitioners in June 2016. Pre- and post-training results showed significant improvements in total scores. The Set for Change (SfC) program was also launched in Year 2, which aimed to strengthen the technical capacities of select national, regional, and district-level staff. The first cohort of ten Technical Officers for Health Promotion (TOHPz) were drawn from the district levels of the GHS. In addition, three HPD staff completed a three-month internship program with the creative agency, Mullen Lowe. The final draft of the Change Challenge Fund (CCF) guidelines has been shared with HPD for their inputs, and the CCF will be launched in Year 3. Improved technical and organizational capacity of one local SBCC organization (ER 3) was also a key focus of the project in Year 2. The project conducted a two-stage competitive process to identify a local Ghanaian SBCC organization that will assume increasing technical and managerial responsibility for the project and will eventually transition to direct USAID funding. The Head of the HPD participated in reviewing the candidates, and the procurement committee agreed provisionally on a winning applicant, pending the outcome of a pre-award assessment and concurrence by USAID/Ghana. Monitoring and evaluation was an essential component of the project in Year 2. Communicate for Health finalized the project's Activity Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (AMEP) and is awaiting approval by USAID. In December, a working group including the project, Ghana Health Service Health Promotion Department, Family Health Division, and Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation incorporated new SBCC indicators and developed a plan to track progress towards the project's Expected Results.