DMI has received a $400,000 award from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to test whether a mass media family planning campaign increases contraceptive use among men and women of reproductive age living in rural areas of Burkina Faso, using a randomised controlled trial (RCT). The funds are being provided as stage two funding from USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) programme. 

DMI is seeking funds to launch INTENSAÚDE, a planned health mass media campaign supported by the Ministry of Health in Mozambique. The campaign will build on the recent results of a randomised controlled trial in Burkina Faso, conducted by DMI and evaluated by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. This showed that a radio campaign had a significant impact on several target behaviours, notably treatment-seeking for children with symptoms of pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria.

DMI recently launched a four-year randomised control trial in Burkina Faso to evaluate the impact and cost-effectiveness of a mass media campaign on family planning. To target our campaign effectively, we sent our scriptwriters to live in a rural village for a week. Here is why.

The World Food Programme is funding DMI to run a capacity strengthening project in Manica province of Mozambique, which will help community radio stations to design and run behaviour change campaigns to improve outcomes related to nutrition. ​

DMI has been awarded $4.5m by the Global Innovation Fund and a private donor to run a second randomised controlled trial. Like our first RCT, it will take place in Burkina Faso, where the very localised media environment permits a media RCT. It will test the impact of a three-year community radio campaign on family planning behaviours (mainly the uptake of modern contraceptive methods).