By Racheal Abujah
The Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI) has urged Nigeria to localise Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) interventions.
The centre urged the Federal Government to do so by leveraging existing evidence, community structures and local expertise to address the country’s behavioural and development challenges.
Ms Babafunke Fagbemi, Executive Director, CCSI, made the call on Tuesday in Abuja at a post-SBCC Summit engagement organised by the Centre.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the engagement followed the recently concluded 2026 International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama.
The engagement provided an opportunity for stakeholders to reflect on key conversations from the summit, examine their relevance to Nigeria’s development landscape and discuss how the media could amplify communication in driving positive change.
Fagbemi said Nigeria should not simply import solutions developed elsewhere without first understanding the local problems, available evidence and structures that could support implementation.
She said existing formal and informal institutions within communities could provide important platforms for addressing behavioural challenges and countering misinformation and disinformation.
According to her, the first step is to identify the institutions, structures and actors that communities already interact with and understand how they can contribute to social and behaviour change.
“We do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are already existing structures that we can leverage, and they are there just waiting to be tapped,” she said.
She said some of the existing structures were already being used, adding that others were either being underutilised or not being used appropriately.
She said that effective SBCC interventions must be based on evidence and designed around the realities of the communities they seek to serve.
“Global solutions solve local problems best,” she said, stressing the need to adapt global knowledge and approaches to Nigeria’s specific circumstances.
Fagbemi said stakeholders must first establish what the actual problem was.
She said that they must identify the evidence supporting the proposed intervention and determine the appropriate messenger, message and communication platform for the target audience.
She said this approach was particularly important in tackling misinformation and disinformation, which could undermine public health and other development interventions.
According to her, communities were more likely to respond to messages delivered through trusted structures and platforms that reflected their experiences.
She said CCSI had been working to strengthen collaboration among SBCC practitioners by creating opportunities for stakeholders to share experiences, evidence and networks.
She said such collaboration was necessary to reduce fragmentation within the sector and ensure that organisations could build on one another’s expertise rather than working in isolation.
“You want to change the way people think. You want to change their minds. You want to flip the narratives that make people think that we can not take action because somebody has not done something,” she said.
She urged stakeholders to also identify what they already had, the evidence supporting their interventions and the role each actor could play in achieving desired behavioural outcomes.
According to her, SBCC should not be viewed merely as a technical platform but as an integral part of social development and everyday life.
“Social and behaviour change affects everyone, regardless of socioeconomic background or other differences.
“CCSI’s role as co-chair of the 2026 International SBCC Summit in Panama has also provided an opportunity to showcase Nigeria’s expertise and strengthen the country’s visibility within the global SBCC community, ” she said.
She said CCSI did not participate in the summit alone but represented a wider community of practitioners and organisations that had contributed to building SBCC capacity and evidence in Nigeria.
“It definitely did put Nigeria on the map, and of course, Africa as a continent, to just say we can do this, and this is who we are,” she said.
Fagbemi said the lessons from Panama would be useful only if they were translated into practical action in Nigeria.
She urged stakeholders to identify the most effective community structures, trusted messengers and communication platforms for different interventions rather than applying a uniform approach to all communities.
The CCSI executive director said bringing practitioners together to share evidence and experience would help strengthen the country’s SBCC ecosystem and support more coordinated responses to social and health challenges.
She said Nigeria had the expertise, experience and community structures required to develop effective SBCC interventions, but needed greater coordination and stronger use of existing resources.
She urged government, civil society organisations, media practitioners, development partners and communities to work together to ensure that SBCC interventions were locally relevant, evidence-based and capable of producing sustainable behavioural change.(NAN)
Edited by Kadiri Abdulrahman Source