Theme	Illustration
Networking	‘The importance of these social networks, getting to know people, just establishing personal contacts. You know, those are very important everywhere, I think particularly in some of these settings.’
Informal group	‘They referred to it as national coalition, but it is not really a formal entity at all. It is just a group who meets about every quarter, and who put together the national behavior change communications plan because the draw was that people wanted to have harmonized messaging. So this group was born, I think about 15–20 organizations and entities who continue to want to meet and compare notes and see how they're doing. We never said this was an official group. We never claimed it was anything. So it was not a threatening entity at all’.
Expanding the group	‘So right from the beginning it was finding who's on my side who is on the other side and who is on the fence? What will it take to move people one by one to our side?’
Formal group	‘[Initially some others] wanted to work mainly with the pre‐existing and formally recognized non‐governmental nutrition working group. And that's sort of the first reaction people have is, “Oh, we'll just work with the nutrition working group,” but that group does not involve government entities and is not a task oriented group in terms of taking steps to implement programs, it is simply a place to exchange information.’
Issue negotiation within the nutrition community	‘The first thing is to establish that nutrition is really important, again and again. And then within nutrition our particular issue is up against wasting and severely malnourished rehabilitation, micronutrients and maternal nutrition, and so on. You don't want them to say [about you]: “Oh these people have come here with a single agenda so, if you invite them they'll only speak about this.” So I was challenged over and over to make presentations on maternal nutrition and on anemia, etc. So that then one has the validity to be more credible and convincing about our issue and say, “Look, I've looked at the whole thing. This is where my issue fits in and why it is the most critical and do‐able right now.” ’
Sharing and reciprocation	‘It was like, “send me the latest references on hand washing before feeding children”, or “send me your power point presentation, I need to make one, I'm just going to use your slides”, or “have you seen the latest operational plan which is not yet public? I really need your feedback, can you do this for me?” or from various donors “Okay, I'm going to see somebody high up in the ministry, so why don't we say the same things so they hear it from 2 different people?” ’