Breakthrough Gallery

The Breakthrough Gallery highlights some of the incredible achievements the project has made in social and behavior change. To qualify as a breakthrough, an activity must show that it offers a novel perspective, evidence of effectiveness, and scalability. These breakthroughs also adhere to the USAID definition of innovations: “The pursuit of novel approaches that lead to substantial improvements in addressing development challenges” (USAID, 2023).

Want to learn more about the process of identifying breakthroughs?

Read on for more details about how the project defines and identifies breakthroughs.

Man looks at WASH flags during a user-testing session in Niger

Breakthrough ACTION

Cost Comparison Activity

What is a breakthrough?

Breakthroughs are particularly meaningful project achievements. While the project has many meaningful achievements worthy of celebration, breakthroughs are the relatively rare gems that pass a higher threshold. Breakthrough ACTION used a critical lens to assess which activities offered innovations that measurably accelerated health outcomes. Where did the project break new ground? Where had research and design thinking been applied to identify new successful solutions? The diagram below presents the three phases used to designate breakthroughs.

Phase 1: Actionable Insights, Phase 2: Solutions, Phase 3: Innovations, Breakthroughs stem from actionable Insights, novel solutions that test well, are scalable, and produce evidence of effectiveness when implemented.