Social and Behavior Change Specialist, Momentum Country and Global Leadership

For over 50 years, The Manoff Group, Inc. (TMG), a woman-owned small business, has been an international leader in designing and assisting the implementation of social and behavior change programs that effectively promote healthy behaviors and allow populations to enjoy an improved quality of life. TMG’s innovative behavior-centered programming approach, Behavior Integration, offers a practical methodology for realizing measurable and sustained behavior change at the individual, community and organizational levels. Our methodology is based on human-centered design principles and employs techniques from disciplines such as anthropology, behavioral economics, psychology, marketing and communications to strategically build programs that enable people to practice life–enhancing behaviors. All project work is carried out in the spirit of collaborative learning and co-creation.

The Momentum Country and Global Leadership buy-in for Zambia is a 3-year investment funded by USAID to deliver high-impact technical assistance (TA) to the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) in the areas of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH&N) Program in ways that will sustainably improve health systems performance and accelerate improvements in health outcomes.

TMG provides technical leadership in cross-cutting social and behavior change on this effort, coordinating closely with project staff to support GRZ provincial and district representatives to prioritize and program towards critical behaviors necessary to facilitate progress towards GRZ’s health goals. This process will encompass consideration and identification of individual, community and provider-level behaviors, and will ensure alignment, efficiency and cohesion across all technical areas and work streams of the project. In addition, TMG will work with and through consortium and locally identified partners to build organizational capacity of external stakeholders in the use of a step-wise, logical process to SBC strategy development, called Behavior Integration.

The SBC Specialist will serve as the technical lead and main TMG representative to the project in Zambia. He or she will lead design and oversee implementation of demand creation and uptake of high-impact interventions, ensuring coherence and alignment among all project activities, and supporting the highest level of quality in execution of capacity building/transfer and any direct implementation. The specialist will also closely coordinate with the SBC Advisor from the USAID Family Health and Nutrition project, as much of the work is complementary and synergistic. The specialist will work as part of the project’s core multi-disciplinary team and will report to the project’s Technical Lead for Objective 1. The Specialist will also work closely with and have responsibility for keeping informed TMG’s Senior Advisor for Social and Behavior Change for the project, based in the United States.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy Development: Use SBC Strategic process, Behavior Integration, to support local partners and government stakeholders to use behavioral science to make progress on persistently challenging issues

• Working with local stakeholders, identify and prioritize key behaviors of providers, systems actors and policy makers as well as individuals, families, and community leaders, to help achieve results of high-impact interventions across all IRs. This will include all technical areas, but will likely start with priorities relating to adolescent health and nutrition.
• Leverage existing research to create pathways to change for those practices, including defining the factors impeding or motivating their practice and activities that should be implemented
• Identify research questions that will guide targeted formative research to fill gaps in understanding of priority behaviors
• Support carrying out of any necessary formative research, including developing protocols, training of research assistants and analyzing results to include in pathways to change for priority behaviors
• Use identified pathways to formulate detailed interventions in response to identified factors, together with local groups
• Identify commonalities and differences in the pathways for the different behaviors and create unifying, cohesive strategy for behavior change across entire project
• Provide input into identification of indicators for priority practices and critical factors associated with enabling change along with methods for tracking progress on those indicators and adapting implementation as necessary

Strategy Implementation

• Include implementation of strategy, including budgeting and administrative components, in project workplanning and technical assistance/capacity building approaches
• Work with local stakeholders to specify the linkages between the SBC strategy and the annual planning cycle (MTEF), including making specific recommendations to MOH, providing the framework for how those recommendations would be implemented as well as necessary budget to do so, and providing oversight and technical assistance throughout implementation
• Revisit and adapt strategy as necessary over the course of project implementation, in response to monitoring data as well as any other changes

Communications Design and Implementation

• For those behaviors requiring communication to facilitate change, support MOH counterparts to develop a communications plan, outlining key audiences, media, messaging and advocacy required for different audiences
• Support counterparts to prepare creative briefs for all necessary materials
• Provide TA and support to materials production, including pre-testing and approvals
• Provide oversight and support to implementation of SBC activities and document their roll out for wider learning purposes
• Coordinate monitoring of activities as designed

Capacity Development

• In coordination with broader project capacity building goals, develop and implement a capacity development plan to identify needs and, subsequently build and actively support the development of essential SBC competencies, skills and processes. Over time, provide the necessary support to help ensure quality, strategic SBC work with diverse local actors and partners, including government.
• Support project field staff in key elements of SBC/behavior integration to ensure seamless support to GRZ counterparts at all levels

Administrative

• Ensure implementation of SBC strategy and corresponding activities is well-defined, budgeted and managed as part of the project’s workplan and within the MTEF planning process
• Participate in annual workplan and project review meetings, leading the discussions on SBC plans, progress and potential.
• Contribute to MTEF report, annual progress reports, sustainability framework, and final activity report, including administrative, technical and learning-oriented components as requested
• Develop stories and abstracts of SBC/C work upon request

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree equivalent in one of the following or related fields: Anthropology, sociology, psychology, marketing, communication, or international public health/nutrition with a specialization in behavioral science
• Five years of relevant experience in design and implementation of evidence-based behavior and social change strategies in Zambia, ideally related to family health (maternal, newborn, child or adolescent) or nutrition
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing SBC formative research
• Demonstrated understanding of social and behavior change concepts, including the distinction between SBC and SBCC, and broad knowledge on recent developments in the field
• Strong facilitation skills, including the ability to build consensus among partners and stakeholders, with demonstrated success working with local government and NGO stakeholders
• Demonstrated capacity for strategic and tactical programming and use of creative, innovative program approaches and actions.
• Ability to work in a dynamic team with colleagues of different backgrounds, to develop new ideas and perspectives in a team environment
• Ability to work in a team and independently and to take initiative to get activities started.
• Demonstrated ability to articulate concepts well in writing and verbally, in English and at least one additional local language, with proven ability to communicate effectively in diverse multi-stakeholder settings.
• Willingness to travel to the field and community levels as required.
• Proficiency in MS Office and internet applications required
• Must be Zambian national or have legal right to work in Zambia