GIVING THANKS
We would like to thank all of our donors for their kind support. Without it we could not deliver our high-impact campaigns in Sub-Saharan Africa. Read our highlights below to see how we made a difference in 2020, and our Impact Strategy to learn about our future plans to reach 100 million people by 2025. To help make this happen, you can donate here.
OUR HIGHLIGHTS
RAPID RESPONSE - CAMPAIGNING ON CORONAVIRUS
Earlier this year, support from individual donors, Givewell, and the Mulago & Skoll Foundations enabled us to reach 40 million people, in 9 countries, with vital messages about COVID-19.
We produced 56 radio spots in 37 languages, as well as animations and live action films for TV and social media. Our messages addressed stigma and misconceptions about the virus and covered how to prevent its spread through physical distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene.
Our teams in Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia worked with national governments to design and manage our response. They did this alongside adapting and delivering our ongoing life-saving campaigns on child survival, family planning, early childhood development and tuberculosis (TB).
We produced 56 radio spots in 37 languages, as well as animations and live action films for TV and social media. Our messages addressed stigma and misconceptions about the virus and covered how to prevent its spread through physical distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene.
Our teams in Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia worked with national governments to design and manage our response. They did this alongside adapting and delivering our ongoing life-saving campaigns on child survival, family planning, early childhood development and tuberculosis (TB).
NEW CAMPAIGN - CHILD SURVIVAL IN TANZANIAThe Coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a marked decrease in people using essential health services across Africa. This will have a significant negative impact on child health, as life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria go untreated.
With backing from the Government of Tanzania and UNICEF, DMI’s latest campaign tackles the most pressing health issues for Tanzanian children & their families and encourages people to use essential health services. More info to follow. |
RESULTS IN - CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN TANZANIAThis year we had some very good news on our Addressing Stunting in Tanzania Early (ASTUTE) project. The campaign gave parents advice on how to make children “smarter, healthier and more successful” and the results were impressive.
Exclusive breastfeeding went up from 79% to 92%, pregnant women eating a more varied diet went up from 7% to 20%, and mothers engaging with their child’s learning went up from 47% to 79%. |
THE RESULTS OF OUR GROUND-BREAKING RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL
DMI is the first organisation to have scientifically demonstrated, with a randomised controlled trial (RCT), that mass media can affect behaviours (results published in BMJ Global Health). Our treatment-seeking campaign led to increases in treatment for malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia of 56%, 73% and 39% respectively in the first year, all p<0.001, which corresponded to approximately 3,000 children’s lives saved over the course of the three year radio campaign in Burkina Faso. At an estimated $7 - $27 per DALY, this intervention is among the most cost-effective methods available for saving children’s lives.
The following one-minute animation explains our results:
The following one-minute animation explains our results:
OUR APPROACH TO CHANGING BEHAVIOURS
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Saturation. We apply a basic yet highly effective principle of commercial marketing: saturation (reach and frequency). Media campaigns are only effective if they reach the majority of the target audience, often enough to drive home the key messages and calls to action.
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Science. Media campaigns will only be seen as legitimate interventions if they can show impact. Until recently there was little evidence that media campaigns change behaviours. We have run the first randomised controlled trial to prove that a media campaign can change health behaviours in a low-income country.
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Stories. We cannot change behaviours if we do not conduct research to understand the values, motivations and concerns of our target audience. Media campaigns should be simple and emotionally engaging, motivating people to change their behaviours, rather than simply providing information.
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INDEPENDENT AUDITS OF DMI'S IMPACT
GiveWell has ranked DMI as one of the most high-impact, cost-effective non-profit organisations in the world.
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DMI earned the maximum grade of three stars for each quality component of the impact audit: (i) quality of evidence; (ii) quality of monitoring systems; and (iii) quality of protocols for iterative learning.
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DMI is on a list of highly effective charities drawn up by a panel of experts for The Life You Can Save.
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OUR PARTNERS AND FUNDERS
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FILMS ABOUT DMI
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Why DMI? DMI's CEO, Roy Head, describes how DMI was created to bring together the very different worlds of media and science, and how it has the potential to save many thousands of lives.
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Changing behaviours. Everything that DMI does is based on changing behaviours. To do this, we combine field research with creative techniques. This film shows that process at work in Burkina Faso.
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The science. What is the science that underpins DMI's work? How many lives can we actually save? What is a DALY? Professor Jimmy Whitworth, Dr Richard Horton and Roy Head present the key concepts.
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