Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA OAA 17 000002
Breakthrough-ACTION is a USAID-funded global health grant opportunity designed to scale up social and behavior change (SBC) solutions that already have strong evidence behind them. The central goal is to increase adoption of priority health behaviors and strengthen the social norms that make those behaviors easier to practice and sustain, with specific attention to gender norms. By improving both individual practices and the surrounding social and community expectations that influence them, the project aims to deliver measurable improvements in key health and development outcomes, especially in family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), HIV/AIDS, maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), and malaria.
At its core, the opportunity is about taking proven SBC approaches and integrating them more systematically into health and development programs worldwide. Rather than focusing primarily on generating brand-new evidence from scratch, Breakthrough-ACTION is positioned to expand coverage and effectiveness of interventions that already show results. That includes strengthening how these interventions are designed, delivered, adapted for different contexts, and embedded into existing country and global programming so they can reach more people and have broader impact. The project also emphasizes innovation, but in a practical sense: building on what works, testing improvements, and refining implementation based on learning from real-world rollout.
A defining feature of Breakthrough-ACTION is its close coordination with a companion award, Breakthrough-RESEARCH. The two projects are meant to work in parallel and reinforce each other. Breakthrough-RESEARCH focuses on building and sharing evidence in SBC areas where knowledge is still limited or where the evidence base is not yet strong enough to guide large-scale programming decisions. Breakthrough-ACTION, in contrast, takes interventions with substantial existing evidence and pushes them further by expanding their reach and improving their application. Together, they create a feedback loop: research helps fill gaps and sharpen understanding, while action-oriented programming translates strong evidence into scaled, on-the-ground results.
The grant is structured to build on USAID's prior investments in SBC across global and bilateral programs. That means the awardee would not be starting from a blank slate; instead, the project is expected to leverage existing tools, lessons learned, and established platforms while also helping guide new learning and encouraging broader uptake of proven practices. A key part of the approach is convening and supporting a wide range of stakeholders across health and development, helping them align around a shared, forward-looking SBC agenda. In practical terms, this implies coordination across donors, implementing partners, host-country institutions, technical experts, and local actors to develop consensus on priorities and to operationalize SBC strategies at scale in ways that can be measured and tracked.
Although USAID notes that social and behavior change communication (SBCC) has been the backbone of its SBC work to date, this opportunity explicitly encourages applicants to go beyond traditional communications approaches when appropriate. The funding call highlights the value of structural and environmental interventions that change the conditions shaping behavior, not only the messages people hear. It also signals openness to interdisciplinary methods and design philosophies, including behavioral economics (such as nudges and incentive-aware program design), human-centered design (solutions built around lived experience and usability), social capital (leveraging networks and trust to shift norms), and social psychology (understanding identity, group influence, and normative pressure). This framing suggests USAID is looking for programs that can address both the demand-side and the context-side drivers of health behavior, especially where norms and gender dynamics play a major role.
From an administrative standpoint, Breakthrough-ACTION was issued by the U.S. Agency for International Development as a discretionary funding opportunity under a Cooperative Agreement, meaning USAID would expect substantial involvement during implementation rather than a hands-off grant. The opportunity number is RFA-OAA-17-000002 under CFDA 98.001. USAID anticipated making a single award, with an award ceiling of up to $300,000,000, indicating a large flagship mechanism intended to influence global practice rather than a small pilot program. The original posting date was January 3, 2017, with an original closing date of March 3, 2017, and eligibility was listed broadly as "Others," with further details referenced in the full eligibility text of the announcement.
Overall, Breakthrough-ACTION can be read as an effort to professionalize and scale SBC as a core driver of global health impact: taking interventions with proven results, integrating them into major health programs, shaping enabling norms (including gender norms), and coordinating with complementary research so that implementation and evidence generation move forward together. The intended end state is not just better messaging, but stronger systems and environments where healthier behaviors become more common, more acceptable, and more sustainable across multiple disease and life-stage areas.Apply for RFA OAA 17 000002
- The Agency for International Development in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Breakthrough-ACTION" and is now available to receive applicants.
- Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 98.001.
- This funding opportunity was created on Jan 03, 2017.
- Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 03, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
- Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000,000.00 in funding.
- The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
- Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).
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