How Changing Social Norms is Crucial in Achieving Gender Equality

UNFPA has released this compendium on social norms change to achieve gender equality, which provides a framework for programmatic approaches to norms change at scale.

This document presents some of the most promising strategies for changing social norms and achieving gender equality. A greater understanding of the conceptual background of social norms and norms change provides a schematic – a skeleton outline – for social transformation. The compendium, which is summarized in a technical brief, presents the tested processes of social norms change and a programme design framework, as applied to programming to end female genital mutilation. These processes are iterative, simultaneous and self-reinforcing and can be applied to other thematic areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights.