Contractor to organize Social Behaviour Change / Communication for Development National Summit in Beirut, Lebanon

Communication for Development (C4D) or Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) has been an important aspect of development programming over decades. Today C4D is defined at UNICEF as the strategic use of communication, research and participatory community engagement to promote positive and measurable behaviour and social change. C4D is an evidence-based process that utilizes a mix of communication tools, channels and approaches to facilitate participation and engagement with children, families, communities, networks for positive social and behaviour change in both development and humanitarian contexts. It draws on learnings and concepts from the social, behavioural and communication sciences.

In the context of Lebanon, while the early years had a heavy focus and reliance on production of Information Education and Communication (IEC) materials for what was one-way communication from experts to target audiences, the latter years have seen increased participation of communities in situation analyses and decisions about communication channels and products in order to facilitate lasting changes in individual behaviours, community and socio-political factors. UNICEF Lebanon has also been working with multiple partners to defend children’s lives and rights by applying C4D which is contributing to various programmatic areas such as Child Protection, Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, Hygiene, etc.

In this regard, UNICEF Lebanon aims to organize the first ever national summit on C4D/SBCC in Lebanon in December 2019. The summit aims to provide a platform for government, donors, practitioners, scholars, media and other stakeholders to take stock of how far Lebanon has come with SBCC practice, where it is now and future vision for coordination among stakeholders and government leadership.