Agency for All is a USAID-funded project (2022-2027) that generates and applies evidence on agency,
empowerment, and effective social and behaviour change (SBC) strategies to convert intention into action
to improve health. The AforAll’s goal is to improve and sustain health and agency for women, girls, and
communities through locally-led equitable partnerships focused on understanding agency and its ability
to convert intentions into action within SBC programs. Although there is emerging evidence that
empowerment-focused SBC interventions can create sustained impacts on a wide range of health
outcomes across contexts, SBC interventions rarely address issues of individual and collective
empowerment and agency. To address these gaps, the Agency for All project consortium developed
culturally relevant and appropriate constructs of agency, strengthen evidence on approaches that
increased agency for sustained health and well-being, and fostered the agency of local partners,
generating and utilizing evidence.
With support from USAID/Nigeria, Agency for All undertook a robust and nuanced analysis that has helped
USAID/Nigeria and partners to understand how current investments in COVID-19 vaccination sensitization
(i.e., risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) efforts) has impacted and affected agency
and empowerment at the individual, community, and system levels, thereby leading to increased uptake
of COVID-19 vaccines, and other life course vaccinations in Nigeria.
The objectives of the project were:
- to deepen understanding of trends in the determinants of vaccine confidence and uptake,
- better understand how current investments in COVID-19 vaccination SBC efforts affect agency
and empowerment to invest uptake of COVID-19 vaccination - examine changing perceptions related to vaccine safety, efficacy & accessibility; trust in health
systems/providers; and willingness to take the vaccine.
Leave a Reply