Breakthrough ACTION is an eight-year USAID-funded global project that accelerates the use of social and behavior change (SBC) through evidence-based tools and processes that encourage the adoption of healthy behaviors, while addressing structural barriers and underlying social and gender norms that prevent uptake of services and positive health practices.
Breakthrough ACTION has garnered insights into gender-transformative programming using social and behavior change (SBC) approaches to effectively address social determinants and structural barriers. By prioritizing those with the greatest needs and integrating gender responsiveness, Breakthrough ACTION fosters equitable health and development outcomes despite inequitable gender norms.
Case Example: Breaking Taboos: The Impact of Merci Mon Héros on Family Planning Conversations in Francophone Africa
The Merci Mon Héros (MMH) campaign aimed to break taboos surrounding family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) in Francophone Africa by promoting open, intergenerational dialogue. Using a multi-media approach that included testimonial videos, social media engagement, radio broadcasts, and community activities, MMH facilitated discussions on sensitive topics such as first periods, first sex, and family planning methods. By providing a platform for young people to talk about FP/RH and encouraging adults to empathize with youth and talk with them about FP/RH, MMH reduced the social and gender norms that regularly prevent youth access to modern contraceptive information and services. The campaign's exposure was significantly associated with increased contraceptive self-efficacy and conversations about FP/RH, particularly among women.
Featured Video: Reducing Gender Inequities to Improve Very Young Adolescents’ Well-being: The GET4Youth Package
The GET4Youth Package is an adaptable package of interventions that reaches key systems and influencers in very young adolescents’ environment—such as caregivers, schools, community leaders and members, and government leaders—to reduce gender-based bullying and improve mental health outcomes. The package can be adapted to improve other aspects of very young adolescents’ health and well-being and implemented in other contexts.
Featured Resources
- Creating a Gender-Equitable Environment for Very Young Adolescents: Messages and Evidence to Persuade Decision Makers
- Gender Equality Check-in Tool
- Getting Practical: Integrating Social Norms into SBC
- Intentionally Incorporating the Social Determinants of Health into Social and Behavior Change Programming for Family Planning
- Know, Care, Do: A Theory of Change for Engaging Men and Boys in Family Planning
- Women’s Empowerment Group Operational Guidelines
Lessons Learned
- Recognize and challenge internal staff attitudes and biases as one of the first steps in building commitment to gender equality and strengthening project-wide skills in gender integration.
- Utilize systematic processes and tools, such as gender analyses and theories of change, from project inception to ensure an intentional and strategic approach to gender integration in early yet critical stages of the project cycle.
- Remain attuned to new insights, data and opportunities throughout the project cycle, which can serve as a catalyst to adapt activities for greater gender integration or transformation.
- Engage with and help strengthen the capacity of a wide range of stakeholders, including local governments and religious leaders, to enable them to play a leadership role in shifting social and gender norms around sensitive issues such as child, early and forced marriage.
- Foster women’s leadership and influence at the community level to bring greater representation in community-level decision-making bodies and ensure that women’s voices are heard.
- Avoid reinforcing negative gender norms, such as promoting men as sole decision makers, when designing messaging and materials targeted at men and boys.
- Address household and community power dynamics by fostering joint decision-making and mutual respect among men, women and other gender identities.
- Find culturally relevant terminology to talk about gender equality, especially in socially conservative environments, to avoid community backlash against norms shifting interventions.
- Pay attention to gender norm formation during adolescence and early adolescence through a whole-community approach that engages parents, families, schools and communities to create a supportive environment for gender equality.
Stories of Impact
Thought Leadership
- Bringing fear into focus: The intersections of HIV and masculine gender norms in Côte d’Ivoire
- Concordance, communication, and shared decision-making about family planning among couples in Nepal: A qualitative and quantitative investigation
- Gender-based violence in Senegal: Its catalysts and connections from a community perspective
- Global survey on COVID-19 beliefs, behaviours and norms
- ‘I can’t leave everything in the hands of my husband’: Economic constraints and gender roles in care-seeking in post-Ebola Guinea
- Meeting men’s mental health needs during COVID-19 and beyond: a global health imperative
- Men and COVID-19: Adding a gender lens
- The role of gender in Zika prevention behaviors in the Dominican Republic: Findings and programmatic implications from a qualitative study
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