Building SBCC Capacity in Tanzania: The Experience of the ACE Mentoring Program

"Capacity building in social and behavior change communication (SBCC) is vital for the effective design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of local health communication interventions."

This Tanzania Capacity and Communication Project presentation for the International SBCC Summit 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 8-10, describes the ACE (Advancing Communication Experientially) Program.

From the abstract:
"Capacity building in social and behavior change communication (SBCC) is vital for the effective design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of local health communication interventions. As part of its capacity building strategy, the Tanzania Capacity and Communication Project initiated the ACE (Advancing Communication Experientially) Program in 2011. ACE’s focus is to empower Tanzanians with SBCC skills through the on-the-job placement, training, and mentorship. ACE also provides partner organizations with additional SBCC human resources. ACE aims to further seed the health communication community with a crop of freshly developed and committed SBCC professionals in Tanzania, through a six-month blended learning experience.

Key highlights:
• A total of 219 participants (110 interns and 109 fellows) have been placed in 53 partner organizations across four regions (Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Njombe, and Mwanza) since 2011. All 209 attended the locally facilitated LSHC workshop.
• ACE conducted 128 on-the-job training activities on SBCC and professional development and participants completed over 50 online courses on SBCC between 2011-2015.
• Preliminary analyses show that average scores for the communication theory course improved 50 percent between pre-test and post-test.
• Several interns have now acquired full-time jobs in SBCC, community mobilisation and health communication programs, and many trained interns and fellows continue to participate in various SBCC interventions and projects throughout the country."