SBCC for sustainability and climate - what's working?

Lesotho, a "water tower" of Southern Africa, contributes significantly to water supply in the Orange-Senqu river basin, earning foreign exchange and sustaining livelihoods. The country, however, faces rapid catchment degradation due to climate change, overgrazing, weak cooperation, and unsustainable land use, threatening livelihoods and downstream water security. To address these holistically, Lesotho introduced the national Integrated Catchment Management Programme 'ReNOKA' – supported by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, through GIZ. In partnership with Busara, the programme initiated an SBCC strategy to promote collective watershed restoration, integrating behavioral science into ReNOKA's communication and community engagement to foster participation, ownership, and sustainable land/water management. 
Using Busara's AUDAS framework (Align, Understand, Design, Assess, Share), the team collaborated with consortium partners to co-design 13 prototypes that evolved into three bundled SBCC interventions: folklore-based cohesion events, empathy and identity workshops reframing herders as community champions, and peer-led agricultural demonstrations. A randomized field experiment across 40 villages, supported by surveys and focus groups, revealed stronger inter-community collaboration, enhanced herder identity, and greater uptake of sustainable water and land management practices. Nonetheless, intention–action gaps remained, underscoring the need for practical enablers, timely engagement, and recognition-based incentives. Our findings can inspire similar interventions to motivate collective action on conservation and land and water management. They show that behaviourally informed SBCC can translate awareness into sustained stewardship by aligning motivation with opportunity and empowering communities as co-creators, strengthening the sustainability of restoration efforts.

Farmers in Central America face severe climate impacts such as irregular rainfall, rising temperatures, and prolonged droughts. Unsustainable farming practices have degraded 70% of farmland and left 60% of households food insecure, often forcing migration.
'With our Feet on the Soil' is the Social and Behavior Change (SBC) communication program of the Water-Smart Agriculture (WSA) initiative. Since 2020, WSA promotes soil-first practices through a multiplatform strategy that was co-created with farmers, extension workers, local organizations, and radio stations to reach the farmers missed by on-the-ground extension work. The program uses narrative-based approaches to put farmers' voices and experiences at the core of the intervention.
Weekly programs are broadcast in alignment with the agricultural calendar across Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, using mini-dramas, farmer testimonies, interviews, and audience discussions. These are complemented by digital tools –WhatsApp, social media, and a chatbot to provide on-demand technical support. Community activations bring local partners together to support farmers and connect them with resources. Monitoring allows adaptation to maximize engagement and ensure local voices continue to lead content creation.
An evaluation conducted in 2025 showed that the program reached 30% of rural farmers. Exposure to the radio programs increased soil cover adoption by 42% and doubled green manure use, especially among farmers without any training. These results show that co-creation fosters ownership, multiplatform strategies amplify impact, partnerships connect hard-to-reach farmers with resources, and behavior change can occur at scale through evidence-based, culturally-responsive content.

Climate change is a growing threat to maternal and newborn health, with rising temperatures linked to preterm birth, stillbirth, and maternal complications, while flooding and other extreme weather events disrupt access to care. Pregnant women and new mothers in low-resource settings are particularly vulnerable. While evidence of climate impacts on maternal health is growing, most health communication platforms do not yet integrate this risk into their messaging.


Jacaranda Health operates PROMPTS, a digital health platform that reaches over two million mothers in Kenya with SMS-based health information and two-way support. Recognizing an uptick in urgent maternal concerns during extreme heat events, Jacaranda is adapting PROMPTS to deliver climate-sensitive SBCC messages and alerts. This includes proactive SBCC messaging, as well as linking local weather forecasts to a predictive model that identifies periods of high risk and triggers text alerts. Messages are co-developed with mothers to reflect their lived experiences, ensuring relevance and trust.


This presentation will share the process of designing, testing, and refining climate-informed health messages, and how SBCC approaches are being applied to build climate resilience into maternal health systems. Preliminary lessons will be shared on risk perception, message uptake, and adaptation behaviors, with implications for other countries seeking to integrate climate risk into health communication platforms.