Presentation by Meghan Anson, Senior Nutrition Advisor in USAID's Bureau for Resilience and Food Security.
In April 2022, USAID launched a new Climate Strategy that will guide our efforts to tackle the existential threat of climate change over the next decade. Using a "whole-of-Agency" approach, it calls on all corners of USAID - including nutrition, resilience, and food security - to play a part in our response. The strategy also provides an opportunity to reflect on how SBCC – and media and communications in particular – have contributed (and can contribute) to the strategic aim of advancing equitable and ambitious actions to confront the climate crisis. It is also a chance to examine how SBCC interventions have helped people to better prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change. And as USAID determines how to target support to climate and environment challenges in future years, this contribution will outline where and how more and better evidence on the climate-related impact of SBCC approaches would help inform investment decisions.

This evaluation assesses a multimedia project including a 20 episode TV drama #CeritaKita (Our Story), which aired on Surya Citra TV (SCTV) between June and August 2022, and accompanying digital media content, which reached an estimated 24.5 million people. The drama aimed to make climate change, green growth, and environment issues more relevant to youth in Indonesia through the depiction of a neighbourhood where young characters, their families and lives are intertwined with the climate and environmental difficulties they experience. Through a multi-method evaluation including a process evaluation, a quantitative survey, a randomized controlled trial, social media analytics and qualitative research, the evaluation examines the impact of programming on audiences' knowledge, discussion, attitudes, motivations and behaviours in relation to climate change, green growth, and environment issues. It showed that nearly half of the drama audience engaged with the content regularly. The experiment – with people randomly assigned to watch the TV drama and discussion show - found that the programming had a significant and positive impact on: knowledge – viewers knew more about the environmental impact of human activity, for example how beef farming contributes to water shortage or how food waste produces Methane; discussion and willingness to share environmental posts and follow relevant online influencers; policy support – for example support for the Indonesian government climate pledge and appetite for more media coverage of sustainable development. However, it did not influence people's climate related risk perceptions nor their intent to get involved in local environmental action (clean-up/tree-planting).

Society has more data about climate change than ever before, but using it to shift how society understands, deliberates, and acts, requires radically advancing communication. This demands novel collaborations that connect multiple perspectives, complement expertise, align strategic vision and foster creativity.
This 'whole of society' approach to risk communication requires people who not only understand climate change (from a technical perspective or otherwise), but can also connect, communicate and collaborate with others. Skills to span social and professional boundaries are increasingly important, especially amidst heightened attention on the systemic nature of risk and climate change, involving more diverse actors across scientific disciplines, government and society.


In many sectors, however, practitioners are not rewarded for attempts to foster diverse, cross-disciplinary collaborations. It can be viewed as a waste of time, a folly, a career-track derailment, an act of rebellion or a sign of weakness. It can consume resources an organisation does not have. When practitioners venture into diverse collaborations they may face common challenges such as power imbalances, conflicting interests and incentives, differing agendas, ways of working (protocols, reporting lines and speed), use of language and jargon, and low levels of trust. Collaborating to communicate about climate change is no different.

The SBCC community is strong when we prove our impact, when we talk about what does and doesn't work, when we are visible and we identify and fill evidence gaps. To fully realise the potential that SBCC has in supporting climate action, it is critical we collate, review and clearly communicate evidence demonstrating the value SBCC can bring to support climate action and drive participation in these essential issues. To this end, the Evidence of Impact Initiative of the Global Alliance for Social and Behaviour Change has developed the Evidence of Impact Database. It compiles the best examples of evidence that communication works for supporting Sustainable Development Goals including SDG13 – take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact. It identifies and catalogues examples of strong evaluation and assessment approaches and offers a user-friendly, searchable, online reference.
Drawing on this database and on behalf of the Global Alliance and the Summit Secretariat, an evidence-based policy brief was commissioned that explored the role of media-based interventions in engaging people on climate issues and motivating action. This presentation presents a review of the state of evidence around SBC interventions aiming to contribute towards SDG13. It will also share key conclusions from the policy brief on how SBC interventions which deploy media can support SDG13 by seeking to shift behaviours of individuals to take action to combat climate change and its impacts. It identifies compelling evidence, current gaps, challenges, innovations and policy recommendations.