Demystifying Community Mobilization

This document describes the use of community mobilisation as a primary strategy to reduce maternal and newborn mortality in communities, while building civil society capacity to achieve and sustain further positive health and community development results. The publication attempts to address donor concerns about community mobilisation and to present evidence from the field that it should be included as part of broader national health plans to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on maternal and newborn health.

The document is the result of a review of journals, books, and peer-reviewed publications, and interviews with programme implementers and donors. It describes community mobilisation and demonstrates its application through three projects that reduced infant and maternal mortality by 30 to 50 percent with the minimal health-service strengthening available, and, primarily, community participation.


Interpersonal communication is described as part of the approach to communities in establishing the relationship between community participants and external facilitators. Participants define the local context, while facilitators may share valuable information with the community to complement local knowledge with effective strategies, practices, and experiences from outside the community. Respect and trust must precede the work and include facilitator faith in the ability of community members to identify and resolve challenges in the most appropriate way in their particular setting.

Community mobilisation can work with complimentary programme strategies including mass media, services strengthening, and policy advocacy. Community members may, for example, design and disseminate educational messages and materials of health protocols on their perspective of quality care. Examples include a project in Egypt that surveyed mothers of healthy-birth-weight infants to share findings with women's groups and community groups and encourage dialogue and action on prenatal care. Dialogue was established in Nepal, Peru, and Uganda between groups of health care providers and citizen groups on what "quality health care" meant to each group. The result was higher usage of health facilities and improved clinic management and services, as well as a presence of community volunteers in the facilities and a joint coordination and monitoring system.

The document cites success factors, such as a programme staff that includes community members; trainers and training materials, including manuals, booklets, picture cards, and audio-video aids, among other educational materials; a media budget for radio shows, street drama, and other media; and a training budget. Budgets may be community-generated or -matching, to increase participation and self-reliance. Facilitator choice is critical, according to the document, and may include a mentoring relationship between a community member and an outside facilitator. The document recommends that facilitators develop or adapt and document a methodology in a user-friendly way that any future facilitator can use.

The document addresses project monitoring and evaluation, differentiating between measuring long-term goals of community mobilisation for reduced mother and infant mortality and those interim goals for shorter-term projects directed to the same long-term goal. Measuring project results of the former is described as measuring mortality reduction. The author suggests that if projects must delineate intermediate goals in order to satisfy donor time-frames and needs for project completion, the larger goal may not be reached, a fact which may be masked by reporting on the interim goals. However, measuring community capacity, though challenging, is another measurement recommended here, particularly based on indicators measured prior to implementation. Part of project success recognised in the document is the recognition and capacitation of women, whose status and ability to positively impact life in their families and communities is reported to rise due to community mobilisation.

According to this document, scaling up successful community mobilisation projects can occur in a variety of ways, and can be enhanced by communication, such as organic social networking (e.g., a woman describing her community's efforts to a relative in another community) or planned awareness- and interest-raising involving media, including radio, television, or other mass media. Participating communities have developed "centres of learning" or "living universities" to provide support to new communities as they take on community mobilisation projects of their own.