The purpose of this side event is to bring together a diverse panel of technical experts across a broad spectrum of social, behavioural and political sciences. The panellists represent the Global SBC Think tank initiative and have been engaging a wide audience of the SBC community, as internal and external stakeholders, in exploring cross-cutting SBC global discourses and lessons-learned to inform systems strengthening and the community engagement dimensions of SBC programming. The goal of this initiative is to find innovative approaches to SBC strategic thinking and policy dialogues to strengthen SBC programing in development and humanitarian contexts. Think Tank (TT) members will be present to discuss the three key workstreams. As a part of a co-creation process, participants' perspectives and feedback will be solicited in an interactive process to review and discuss the Global TT outputs listed below:

●Systems Strengthening and Transformation through Social and Behaviour change: The Case of COVID-19 vaccination behaviour and lessons for Institutional leaders

●Making the Investment Case for Social & Behaviour Change (IC4SBC)

●Revisiting SBC Conceptual Frameworks and Case Studies from Afghanistan, Haiti, Malaysia, Somalia

Meet the panel:

Nisar Ahmad, MBA: Extensive experience in the corporate sector, development sector and academics. Currently, he works as Executive Director for Envisions Institute of Development – an organisation in special consultative status with UN-ECOSOC.

Collins Airhihenbuwa, PhD: Global expert on health behaviour leading the Global Research Against Non-Communicable Diseases (GRAND) at Georgia State University. His interests lie in centralising culture and identity with the goal of advancing health equity and social justice. He has also served as a consultant to several UN agencies, including WHO, UNFPA, and UNAIDS.

Chris Dickey, DrPH: Leading the Global and Environmental Health Program (GEPH) at New York University's School of Global Public Health (GPH). He is an international development innovator and public health entrepreneur whose work seeks to develop sustainable public health models and to forge bonds between the academic community and practitioners in the field. 

Emma Mirza Wati Mohamad, PhD: Expert in Health and crisis communication. Her work focuses on designing communication strategies for health intervention and health literacy. She currently is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean (Research and Innovation) in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She is also Director of the UKM x UNICEF C4D Centre.

Olawale Maiyegun, PhD: Olawale Maiyegun is a Public Policy Expert, an Independent Consultant and a Senior Adviser at the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, Geneva. In addition to being a career Diplomat and retired Ambassador in the Nigerian Foreign Service, he is a former Director of the Department of Social Affairs at the African Union Commission (AUC).

Moderators: 

Rania Elessawi, MA: Social and Behavioural Change Specialist, Partnerships Lead with UNICEF. She supports development and provision of technical guidance for enhancing Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) quality programming in both development and emergency/humanitarian contexts, management and dissemination to UNICEF country and regional offices as well as external audiences.

Erma Manoncourt, PhD: Adjunct Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs, Science Po and Senior Guest Lecturer at the School of Global Public Health , New York University. She founded and is the President of Management & Development (M&D) Consulting Inc. after her 16 year tenure at UNICEF.