Exploring community participation in project design: application of the community conversation approach to improve maternal and newborn health in Zambia.

Background: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has adopted an approach entitled Community Conversation (CC) to improve community engagement in addressing health challenges. CCs are based on Paulo Freire's transformative communication approach, in which communities pose problems and critically examine their everyday life experiences through discussion. We adopted this approach to engage communities in maternal and newborn health discussions in three rural districts of Zambia, with the aim of developing community-generated interventions.