ASD - PAKISTAN

Advocacy, communication and social mobilisation for TB in Pakistan

Advocacy, communication and social mobilisation (ACSM) is often referred to as "demand generation component" for better disease control. The advocacy refers to activities for improved political will; communication refers to activities for changed individual behaviour; and social mobilisation refers to actions at community level. World Health Organisation in its StopTB strategy emphasises ensuring an increased demand for enhanced disease control.

Since October 2007, the National TB Control Programme and its partners have received the global fund support for enhanced ACSM in 57 districts of Pakistan. The implementation of ACSM activities is through multiple non-government partners, including Association for Social Development. National TB Control Programme, through a nationwide consultative exercise, has recently developed the National Strategy and Guidelines for Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilisation. The Association is currently implementing ACSM in nine districts. The community-based events implemented. During the first project year (ending September-October 2008), preliminary operating guidelines and materials have been drafted and implemented for the first round of the advocates enabling ACSM events. The second round of advocate enabling events, due in the second project year, is meant to take this enabling one step forward from the existing situation.

There is a need to learn from early ACSM implementation experiences, agree on capacity building needs of various advocate types, inform the event design and plans, and develop guidelines and materials for the advocate enabling events during the second project year. These guidelines and materials will be piloted, evaluated and refined in the two districts (during the second project year). The refined guidelines and materials will be made available for scaling-up in the remaining GFATM districts, during the subsequent years.

The proposed research focuses on implementation of advocacy, communication and social mobilisation (ACSM) activities in Pakistan. The project will provide an opportunity to study, develop, implement and evaluate a set of guidelines and materials for ACSM through multiple advocates. The set of guidelines and materials will help to make the implementation of selected ACSM events more structured and simpler. The research will be carried out in selected two districts in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The evaluation will assess the feasibility and usefulness, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. It will provide in-depth information on ACSM event implementation experiences.

The work will be done in collaboration with tuberculosis control programme, and after refining and approving, will be made available for future implementation in other districts of the country. The study will provide a strong basis of learning for the ongoing global fund supported ACSM initiative in Pakistan.