Social Behavior Change Communication & Maternal and Child Cash Transfers to Prevent Malnutrition in Myanmar: Lessons learned from Tat Lan, LEGACY, and Bright SUN programmes

A quarter of all children in Myanmar are stunted. The Government of the Union of Myanmar (GoUM) is scaling up Maternal and Child Cash Transfers (MCCT), combined with Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) to prevent malnutrition during the first 1,000 days (from pregnancy to age two). While delivery of the cash transfer component has been well examined, there is little evidence on how to best deliver the SBCC component at scale. Save the Children (SC) conducted a review of three MCCT/SBCC projects in Myanmar funded by Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT) to draw lessons and recommendations for scaling up SBCC with MCCT. The main recommendations from the review are to:

1.  Deliver layered, frequent, and salient SBCC activities to improve and sustain nutrition behaviors
2. Invest in trusted, skilled, and motivated change agents for SBCC, starting with existing workers/ volunteers
3. Link MCCT and SBCC activities to create demand for MCCT and encourage participation in SBCC