Diagnosis to Action: Country Experiences with WHO’s SBC Bottleneck Analysis Tool for Scaling Family Planning (FP)

Scaling social and behavior change (SBC) in family planning (FP) often emphasizes interventions, while the systems that enable or constrain them receive less attention. Policies, financing, workforce capacity, and service delivery structures, among others, are essential, yet these dimensions are rarely examined in a systematic way. As a result, promising SBC approaches may succeed in pilots but struggle to expand or sustain impact nationally.To address this, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the SBC Bottleneck Analysis (BNA) tool to strengthen FP outcomes. The BNA combines document review, key informant interviews, and stakeholder consensus to assess national readiness for SBC scale-up, using the Health System Building Blocks as an organizing framework. It generates insight not only into what policies and structures exist, but how they function in practice, as experienced by implementers and policymakers for FP-SBC.This panel will share lessons from Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Tanzania on applying the BNA to diagnose barriers, prioritize solutions, and inform FP-SBC strategies. In addition to country perspectives, the session will highlight priorities and next steps for translating BNA findings into action, including how the WHO Social and Behaviour Change Implementation Guidance for Contraception and Family Planning can be used as a roadmap. Discussion will explore the technical assistance, scale-up planning, and monitoring support countries will need to move from diagnosis to sustainable change.By linking evidence generation with forward-looking priorities, the panel will demonstrate how the BNA can be both a diagnostic and a springboard for institutionalizing SBC within FP systems.