Sustaining Progress

Message from Debora Freitas Lopez

As we move into 2024, a year filled with challenges old and new, I am confident that the kind of work we do – bringing together individuals, communities, civil society organizations, providers, decision-makers, donors, and many others to face global challenges – will continue to address some of the world’s most pressing issues. ?

However, it is not enough to create social and behavior change programs that address these health and development challenges across the globe. The key to sustaining and building on the progress is to support the next generation of social and behavior change professionals, so that they can create even better programs that inspire healthy behaviors in the communities they know best. ?

CCP’s globally known Leadership in Strategic Communication Workshop is a stellar example of how we do this work. Held annually in Baltimore for more than 35 years, the experience has been called nothing less than transformational by its thousands of alumni from 100 countries around the world. They take what they learn about how to develop and launch social and behavior change campaigns and bring them home. So popular has this experience become that CCP’s workshops have been held in India, Nigeria, and beyond. Applications for 2024’s Baltimore workshop are now open. ?

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the future of social and behavior change lately, as last week I began teaching my first class since joining the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Alongside my colleague Carmen Cronin, we have the pleasure of teaching health communication to a new cohort of graduate students, providing them the kind of tools we hope will spark their desire to further the field of social and behavior change around the world, creating a snowball effect of capacity building. From what I can see, the future is certainly bright.

VACCINATION

CCP Launches Campaign to Promote Vaccination During Africa Cup of Nations Tournament

With all eyes on the African soccer tournament, the Breakthrough ACTION project has created soccer-themed messages to promote COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunizations to audiences in four countries.

CCP Wins Anthem Award for Work on Knowledge SUCCESS

CCP has been recognized as a winner at this year’s Anthem Awards for an innovative adaptation of the “sales funnel” — a traditional private sector strategy that maps a customer’s journey from awareness to action — into a new framework that promotes greater use of technical evidence and knowledge in family planning and reproductive health programming. Read more ?

RESEARCH?

Uncovering Reasons Why COVID-19 Vaccines Faced Hurdles in Malawi

New CCP research suggests that treating the COVID-19 vaccine differently than other routine vaccines may have contributed to vaccine doubts and low uptake rates. Read more ?

FAMILY PLANNING

‘These Women Should be Easy to Reach’

In the Philippines, CCP is working to understand why some women stop using contraception -- and how to get them back on track. Read more ?

RESEARCH

It’s Time to Share Our Failures, New CCP Research Suggests

Sharing failures and mistakes made in global health programs and learning from them can enhance problem-solving, encourage innovation by fostering a culture that supports taking calculated risks, and improve quality by preventing some future errors, new findings from the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs suggest. Read more ?

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

‘Learning Circles’ Help Family Planning Peers Learn From Each Other

A CCP-led knowledge management program allows family planning peers in nearby countries to learn what works and avoid pitfalls of what doesn't. Read more ?