Эксперты призывают Нигерию институционализировать коммуникацию для изменения поведения

Business Follow Us on Google September 2, 2026 by Dele Anofi ‘Nigeria must institutionalise SBCC to sustain social gains’ Nigeria must move beyond fragmented and donor-dependent Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) interventions by institutionalising the practice within government, strengthening local expertise and leveraging existing community structures, experts have said. They warned that failure to do so could leave Nigeria’s behavioural and health interventions vulnerable to declining donor support, fragmented implementation and the loss of gains already made, while stronger local ownership could help the country sustain successful programmes, respond more effectively to misinformation and ensure that communication efforts translate into lasting changes in behaviour and health outcomes. The experts spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at a post-SBCC Summit engagement organised by the Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI), following the 2026 International Social and Behaviour Change Communication Summit in Panama. The engagement brought together SBCC practitioners, policymakers, researchers, media professionals and development partners to examine lessons from the summit and how communication could be better integrated into Nigeria’s health and development systems. The Executive Director of CCSI, Babafunke Fagbemi, said Nigeria should resist the tendency to import interventions wholesale, arguing that global approaches would be most effective when adapted to local realities, evidence and community structures. “We do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are already existing structures that we can leverage, and they are there just waiting to be tapped,” she said. Fagbemi said government, civil society and development actors should first identify the actual behavioural problem, available evidence, appropriate messengers and communication platforms before designing interventions. She said trusted formal and informal institutions within communities could also play a critical role in countering misinformation and disinformation and improving the uptake of health and other development interventions. She added that CCSI’s role as co-chair of the Panama summit had helped demonstrate Nigeria and Africa’s growing expertise in SBCC, but stressed that the value of the global gathering would ultimately depend on how its lessons were translated into action locally. Population and behavioural change expert, Foyeke Oyedokun-Adebagbo said the next step should be to make SBCC a core government function supported by dedicated personnel, predictable funding and behavioural evidence in routine planning. She noted that some government institutions already had units responsible for health education and health promotion, but said such structures often lacked the authority, technical capacity and resources required to deliver effectively. Read Also: Nigeria’s 2030 $1tr economy on course, says Oyedele According to her, practitioners should be equipped with skills in behavioural analysis, community listening and evidence-based communication rather than being limited to producing information and education materials. Oyedokun-Adebagbo also called for sustainable financing, noting that the real test of institutionalisation was whether the people, learning systems and financial structures remained after donor-funded projects ended. Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) Senior Knowledge and Communications Officer, Samson Odukogbe, said the need for stronger government ownership had become more urgent as donor funding for development interventions declined. He urged policymakers to integrate SBCC into government planning, programming and budgeting, while encouraging partnerships with universities, centres of excellence and organisations with specialised expertise to strengthen research and capacity development. Engagement Manager, Solina Centre for International Development and Research, Halima Buba, said practitioners must also broaden the range of voices involved in SBCC, particularly by engaging young people and informal community networks. She identified youth groups, women’s networks, market women and transport workers as potentially influential channels for disseminating information, particularly during health emergencies. Buba said interventions designed for young people should provide safe spaces for them to articulate their concerns rather than assuming that older stakeholders already understood their needs. The role of storytelling in driving behaviour change was also highlighted by Wame Jallow, Executive Director of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation. Jallow said the foundation’s experience with programmes such as MTV Shuga Naija and MTV Shuga DownSouth showed that storytelling could move audiences beyond awareness to measurable changes in health behaviour. She said evaluations of the programmes had shown increased HIV-testing among exposed audiences and reductions in some sexually transmitted infections, demonstrating the importance of measuring outcomes rather than merely counting audience reach. Jallow, however, stressed that communication must be linked to access to the services and commodities people need to act on the information they receive. Emmanuel Nwala of the Policy Innovation Centre said Nigeria already had substantial research and programme evidence that could be used to design, evaluate and scale SBCC interventions, but much of the knowledge remained scattered across organisations. “Nigeria is not lacking data,” he said, urging stakeholders to connect existing evidence and build on successful models rather than repeatedly generating new information. Nwala also called for greater use of digital platforms and artificial intelligence in SBCC, while cautioning that technology should not replace human-centred approaches. He said issues of access, cost, trust, cultural diversity and data protection must be considered when deploying digital and AI-driven interventions. He further identified the private sector, media personalities and other influential figures as potential partners for sustaining SBCC as external funding declines. CCSI Programme Manager Bako Kantiok similarly called for greater collaboration among government, implementing organisations, communities and other practitioners, saying the sector needed spaces to learn from both successes and failures. “We need to have a space where we can learn together, we can do research together, we can count and learn from our failures, and also improve together,” he said. Chair of the Nigeria Universal Health Coverage Forum, Moji Makanjuola, also stressed the need to place communities and people with lived experience at the centre of communication interventions. 📢 ADVERTISEMENT DISCLAIMER: Links above are sponsored posts. The Nation assumes no liability or responsibility for the claims, products, or services offered by third-party advertisers. Proceed with discretion. Stay informed and ahead of the curve! Follow The Nation Newspaper on WhatsApp for real-time updates, breaking news, and exclusive content. Don't miss a headline — join now! 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