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Learn how we use evidence-based behaviour change campaigns to improve and save lives in low-income countries.
Learn about how DMI brings together two different worlds: demonstrable scientific practice and creative storytelling.
Location Nutrition
Lack of consistent, good quality food is the root cause of significant child illness and mortality in Burkina Faso. To address this, we designed a radio and mobile video campaign promoting healthy nutrition and agricultural practices in support of PASANAD (Programme d’Appui à la Sécurité Alimentaire et Nutritionelle, à l’Agriculture Durable et à la résilience au Burkina Faso).
Burkina Faso
Nutrition – diet diversification, exclusive breastfeeding, complementary feeding, hygiene.
18 x 1-minute radio spots and four x 3-4 minute videos to be distributed via community screenings.
The radio campaign was broadcast for 12 months on five community radio stations in the Mouhoun and Nayala provinces of the Boucle du Mouhoun Region in Burkina Faso.
500,000 people over 14 years old reached.
Science
In Burkina Faso, 29.1% of children under-five suffer from chronic malnutrition. 8.6% of children suffer from severe acute malnutrition – a life-threatening condition. Changing behaviours relating to maternal and child nutrition, as well as agricultural production, can increase the variety and quality of food households access and improve the health of mothers and their children.
We needed to understand child and maternal nutrition practices as well as barriers to accessing a nutritious diet among our target population in order to write effective scripts for our radio spots and videos. We conducted 12 focus groups and interviewed 150 people in four villages of the Boucle du Mouhoun region.
Stories
Our research found that while many nutritional practices are markedly improving in Burkina Faso, certain misconceptions and barriers still exist. For example, we discovered many mothers did not practice exclusive breastfeeding because of a common belief that young children would die if they went for a week – let alone six months – without water.
Our Creative Team in Burkina Faso used these findings to produce 18 dramatic radio spots promoting behaviours relating to exclusive breastfeeding, complementary feeding, hygiene, diversification of diet and agricultural production, as well as spots addressing the role of men in pregnancy and nutrition. We also produced four films on these topics. These were based on scripts written by our teams in London and Ouagadougou and were produced in partnership with renowned Burkinabe Director, Apolline Traoré. We tested audience reactions and understanding of our content to ensure they resonated with our target audience.
Saturation
Each of our 18 radio spots and four films was produced in five languages – the four most commonly spoken local languages among our target population, and French – making for a total of 90 radio spots and 20 films. To maximise our reach in the Boucle du Mouhoun region, we used our media analyses from 2011-2012 and 2016 to select the five most popular community radio stations in the area, and identify the best times to broadcast our spots. We broadcast our radio spots 10 times a day, seven days a week, for 12 months, and reached up to 500,000 people. Our project partner, Groupe de Recherches et d’Échanges Téchnologiques (GRET), shared the four films with our target populations in community screenings.
Watch the video
Breastfeeding
Complementary feeding
The PASANAD programme is led by the NGO Groupe de Recherches et d’Échanges Téchnologiques (GRET). It is funded by the European Commission.