Pull-Push Project - Implementing the food safety consumer campaigns

Under the consumer pull-component in WP6 of the project, a nine-month consumer food safety behavior change campaign was developed in each country and run June 2022 to February 2023 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and also in Dire Dawa and Harar, Ethiopia. Knowledge from WP2 and local stakeholder consultation was used to outline the broad requirements of the campaigns. A call was then put out in each country for advertising agencies to put in bids to develop and deliver the campaign. Short-listed applicants made a pitch to a panel of project experts and national food safety partners, with the winning bid then given the contract to produce and deliver the campaign, obtaining regular feedback from project and officials. The campaigns addressed the following:

• In Ethiopia, the campaign aimed to encourage and support women with children below 10 years from low-income households to make safer choices when buying tomatoes at urban informal markets and when preparing tomatoes at home. This mass-media consumer campaign included TV and radio ads, billboards and posters, Facebook posts, and door-to-door visits by trained Health Extension workers.
• A chicken focused campaign was run in Burkina Faso in which the emphasis was on buying chicken at hygienic “koassa’s” (roadside chicken restaurants) in Ouagadougou for home and out-of-home consumption. This mass-media consumer campaign included TV and radio ads, billboards, and a social media component done in collaboration with a social influencer.

Both campaigns were launched with a high profile event with officials and stakeholders covered by the press.