Agency-for-All: A consortium for collaborative learning on agency and social and behavior change
Agency-for-All, a coalition of development partners led by the University of California and San Diego (UCSD) and funded by the USAID, aims to create locally-led, equitable partnerships focused on understanding agency and its ability to convert intentions into action within Social Behaviour Change (SBC) programs.
The program, over the next five years (2022-2027), will develop culturally relevant agency constructs, strengthen the evidence on effective SBC strategies to foster empowerment, and increase the agency of local partners to generate their agendas and lead the application of knowledge. The program will be implemented across East Africa, West Africa, and South Asia (including India). Research and evaluation under the program will comprise three result areas that include:
(1) evidence generation,
(2) measurement, monitoring, and adaptive management, and
(3) research utilization.
As part of the implementation’s first year, Sambodhi acted as the research partner for the South Asia Hub and worked in the result areas of – (1) evidence generation and (2) measurement-monitoring- adaptive management.
As part of (1), Sambodhi undertook formative research for the Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) program implemented by the Centre for Catalysing Change (C3), India. The primary objective of formative research was to inform the development of supportive and dignified care interventions. The results were used to co-create a service-delivery intervention package and an SBC campaign to raise awareness and demand for respectful care at various public health facilities.
The formative research explored the use of national datasets to check for critical issues and challenges in the maternity care space in India. Sambodhi collected primary data across all the identified geographies, health facilities, and respondents. The formative research comprised quantitative data collection from beneficiaries and healthcare providers and observation of facility quality of care norms and practices. Qualitative data was collected from each identified stakeholder to assess the current cultural and work norms of RMC. Under result area (2), Sambodhi reviewed academic and grey literature to identify culturally relevant, reliable, and valid agency measures in the Indian context.