Evaluation of UNICEF Investments Towards Institutional Strengthening for Social and Behaviour Change
Social and behaviour change (SBC) is a keystone in UNICEF’s work and has been recognized as one of the organization’s core change strategies in the UNICEF Strategic Plan, 2022-2025. The UN 2.0 Quintet of Change vision highlights the need for forward-thinking culture and cutting-edge skills to drive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, with behavioural sciences being recognized one of the five key factors in this transformative approach. Marked by a strategic shift from what was formerly known as Communication for Development (C4D), UNICEF is placing greater emphasis on the importance of social and behavioural sciences, expanding beyond the primarily communications-focused approach to one that is inclusive of system-level barriers to change. With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), UNICEF championed its way to strengthening SBC in its programming around the world.
But what is social and behaviour change, really?
Consider an example: UNICEF is committed to improving the lives of children around the world and wants to see an increase in the rates of enrolment in education. SBC is about understanding the factors that influence people’s actions and wielding that knowledge into tools that help create sustainable change in society. This means, for instance, gaining insight into why children are being enrolled into schools or not and leveraging that know-how into actionable change strategies. It is a people-centered solution tailored towards a better understanding of the needs of the community.
Over the years, UNICEF has taken several steps towards integrating SBC approaches in its work and many investments have been made to solidify this effort. In 2023, the UNICEF Evaluation Office launched an evaluation of what these investments have achieved in terms of SBC and whether UNICEF had improved its capacity and overall use of this strategy.
Here were some of the key takeaways:
- Institutional capacity improved significantly but unevenly. More country offices are meeting the organization’s minimum standards, in part owing to the investment made by the BMGF, specifically through capacity building, increased regional capacity, development and dissemination of global public goods, the establishment of dedicated partnerships, and the development of standardized indicators for SBC. However, these improvements lack uniformity across countries and regions, and further progress is needed to safeguard SBC's capacity to keep up with increasing demand.
- Improved institutional capacity led to better programming. The investments seem to have played a part in enhancing the quality of programmes. Some notable initiatives include the development of rapid data gathering tools and platforms like U-Report and the establishment of Community Engagement Minimum Standards that helped bring uniformity to SBC programmes.
- Improvement in the uptake of global public goods. Technical standards were widely used to provide clear information about platforms for implementing effective strategies. However, a lack of funding acts as a barrier to the application and development of these resources, which is compounded by a limited understanding and support for SBC at the country leadership level.
Thus, these investments certainly had a fundamental impact in developing institutional capacity for SBC, but there is still an uneven implementation of strategies and resources across sectors and regions in which UNICEF operates, compounded by varying levels of leadership commitment to SBC.
Based on these key findings, eight recommendations were developed, focusing on enhanced financial investments and fundraising, strengthening leadership as well as internal and external capacity and partnerships.
The Evaluation of UNICEF Investments Towards Institutional Strengthening for Social and Behaviour Change was presented at the Annual Executive Board Sessions in June 2024, during which Director of UNICEF Programme Group, George Laryea-Adjei, poignantly described SBC as the “glue to programme results.” Moving forward, UNICEF should continue to use SBC as a vehicle to work with communities, tapping into their knowledge, attitudes and practices to engender impact-driven solutions for every child. As underscored in the UN 2.0 Quintet of Change, it is paramount to harness the insights from SBC that can foster an environment where informed and positive behaviour change can occur at scale.
