Please Review: Social Norms Practical Guide

Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to share for use and feedback ’’Everybody wants to belong – a practical guide to tackling and leveraging social norms in behavior change programming’’ please see a summary here and the full document at this link.   

This is a living document. We are primarily circulating it to help you address normative behaviors. But the user feedback as well as more direct conversations on its content will also inform a next version. So, comments are more than welcome! You can either email a reply to this note with your critical review or enter your comments directly on the platform - just click on "Please click to review, comment and access any attachments" below or above.

Originally developed in response to a request for guidance from UNICEF MENA offices (#1 request in regional CP/C4D survey on support needs), this effort evolved into a cross-regional initiative on social norms, jointly between MENARO, ESARO and WCARO, led by CP+C4D with M&E and Gender participation. The guide will now become part of the global technical package on social norms – a corporate reference to be released by HQ this year.

The content is based on best practices from around the world and the latest science in the field. It includes 24 tools covering everything from asking yourself at the very beginning if a behavior is truly normative, all the way to scaling up a programme that you will have researched, developed, piloted, implemented, and measured. As the intent is to bridge the gap between theory and practice, each tool is concrete and to the point (we hope), and the document has a specific tone, look and feel to appeal to a large audience, with efforts to move away as much as possible from jargon.

The guide is not norms-centric, but norms-aware. We don’t want practitioners to develop ‘’social norms strategies’’. We want behavior change strategies that properly consider, address and leverage social norms. A such, the approach revolves around analyzing the drivers of behaviors - including norms - and addressing what the most important drivers are, regardless of their nature (structural, social or cognitive). And recommended actions include policy, system and sectoral interventions, alongside what is more traditionally considered as social and behavioral ones. Attention is also paid to addressing root causes related to gender dynamics, power structures, family roles and socialization processes.

We hope this will help strengthen our work and that of our partners when it comes to changing the lives of children and their families. To the C4D colleagues who are often designated custodian of this agenda, and to the sectoral colleagues whose ownership we’d like to increase, we encourage you to refer to this guide when defining your contribution to the achievement of our corporate priorities, and when you are considering strategy development, partnership or capacity building exercises.

If you have any question, feel free to reach out! We’d be happy to support you. We will soon communicate dates for a Webinar presenting the content.

And please do send review comments either by email reply or on the platform - click on "Please click to review, comment and access any attachments" below or above.

Kind regards,

Vincent, on behalf of the many people behind this initiative

Vincent Petit
Regional Advisor - Social and Behavior Change
UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Office