Targeting Social Norms for Social Change in Fragile & Conflict Settings (FCAS)

In the latter part of 2019, I had the opportunity to work with CARE Netherlands to try and better understand how they could improve their Inclusive Governance (IG) programming in Fragile & Conflict Settings (FCAS). I teamed up with Katie Whipkey and Steadman Noble to tackle this challenge through a social norms approach.

Our goal was to try and understand the social norms and practices that influence those with the decision making power (in-country) to build and implement inclusive governance programming — Public Authorities (PA). Specifically, we wanted to know what norms and practices influence PA behaviours with respect to IG programming, and identify potential leverage points for working with or attempting to change these social norms to enhance the uptake and success of IG programming.

How did we do it? Using multiple case studies, we looked at countries including Burundi and Somalia. Through locally engaged staff and remote interviews, we interviewed CARE country offices and partners, local experts and public authorities themselves to gather data. We also conducted a series of interviews with subject matter experts on inclusive governance development and social norms in FCAS. We used a systems approach to go about analyzing this data, where we wanted to identify key norms and practices that influence behaviour at the individual, community, and international levels.

So what did we find? Synthesis of research data unveiled a vast range of social norms and embedded practices that influence IG programming. We identified social norms and practices that a) effect PA’s in general, b) effect women PAs, and c) effect communities from being able to engage.

What were some of the most interesting findings?

Some of the social norms identified include:

• The IG mandate is created at the national level but fails to get properly implemented at the regional/local level;
• Built/physical infrastructure takes priority over social infrastructure (e.g., GBV);
• If NGOs are developing IG, PAs may be less inclined to engage in IG development;
• PAs may not believe in IG, and if they do, they face competing secondary norms in the workplace and FCAS
  environment

Looking at why these norms exist we found reasons include:

• For PAs, influential factors are linked to power, upward accountability, corruption, and focus on physical instead of social infrastructure. PAs may exclude communities due to competing social norms associated with clans. At the community level, they are influenced by competing identities and strong negative sanctions associated with IG development.
• For Women, influential factors spanned self-discriminating social norms and a global belief of marginalized communities having low capacity. Contextual factors that directly influence women’s ability to engage as PAs and in IG processes include patriarchy, poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunities to develop capacity. Within government, women are influenced further by legal and contextual factors reinforcing social norms linked to the powerlessness of
  women, low experience and belief in lack of experience, superficial participation, and challenges with competing identities at home and work.

What can we do about it?

We provide four recommendations on how we may be able to better support IG development in PAs

1. Build PA understanding of IG, elements of IG, and why to engage marginalized communities;
2. Build community understanding of IG, elements of IG, why to engage in IG, and their experience and capacity
   to engage;
3. Co-create IG purpose and programming interventions with PAs and community when such interventions are
   absent, or build on existing interventions that are already working;
4. Include women AND men (adult and youth) in interventions across varying age levels

Want to learn more? This blogpost is just a snapshot of a very in-depth study we did together. In the report itself, we describe social norms and links to behaviour from the literature. We distinguish social norms from morals and values, we talk about what sustains one norm over another, and how we might go about changing norms. In terms of the research itself, we provide a comprehensive overview of the varied norms and practices that influence behaviours around IG through many spheres of influence using the systems approach. To read the full report, click here.