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Social and behaviour change

We don't change who people are. We change the environments in which they act, making it easier for families to adopt positive practices for children. 

Meem (5) holds her toy while standing inside a child protection hub supported by UNICEF.
UNICEF/UN0523669/Monir

In more than 190 countries and territories, UNICEF reaches children with the nutrition, health care, protection and education they need to be healthy and happy. But improving the availability of services doesn’t automatically improve the well-being of families.

For various reasons, caregivers may struggle to benefit from services meant to help children thrive: Sometimes the value of a programme isn’t self-evident. Other times, it neglects to address a root challenge or unseen barrier to access.

UNICEF recognizes that changing knowledge isn’t enough to change behaviours. That’s why we partner with families and community leaders to understand their needs, identify their strengths and lower barriers to positive change.

In every sector, our social and behaviour change (SBC) teams bring together local knowledge with scientific insights to give families more control over the decisions that affect their lives. We don’t work to change who people are – we work to change the environments in which they act, making it easier for communities to adopt protective practices for children. 

UNICEF

What is social and behaviour change?

Various factors that shape the ways we interact with our world also influence how we navigate choice. These factors may be social, like the norms that fuel discrimination or drive parents to comply with harmful practices. They may be psychological, like patterns of thinking that determine what we perceive to be desirable. And too often – for families living in poverty, exposed to insecurity, or relying on weak public systems – the factors that limit control over choice are structural. Power imbalances rooted deep within societies cut people off from the decisions that most affect their lives.

Social and behaviour change (SBC) aims to lower structural barriers that hinder people from adopting positive practices, and hinder societies from becoming more equitable, cohesive and peaceful.

Drawing on various disciplines – from sociology and psychology, to communication and behavioural economics – SBC encompasses any set of strategies and interventions that influences drivers of change and supports local action towards better societies. It helps development practitioners and policymakers design more effective programmes for reducing poverty and inequity. And it blends scientific knowledge with community insights to expand people’s control over the decisions that matter most.

Our work in social and behaviour change

UNICEF actively engages with communities worldwide to strengthen the role they play in creating the societies they want.

With the largest institutional workforce in the field, UNICEF has been a leader in social and behaviour change for over 35 years.

Our work blends traditional and emerging approaches. While communication and community engagement remain central to what we do, we also rely on methods from applied behavioural sciences, human-centred design, and digital and implementation research to achieve the change families deem most critical.

Education

Education transforms societies.  

It gives children the knowledge and skills they need to shape their future. It provides stability, structure and – especially for children growing up through conflict and violence – a sense of protection. Education plays a critical role in challenging harmful social and gender norms. 

But worldwide, millions of children are denied these rights and benefits. Some aren’t able to enrol in school or attend regularly due to economic constraints and additional barriers to access. Others face discrimination, inequitable treatment and even violence in and around school.  

UNICEF estimates that by 2030, hundreds of millions of children will not have learned basic literacy and numeracy skills. Millions more will be subjected to some form of violence in and around the classroom – many in countries where the legal system does not fully protect them from corporal punishment. 

Experiences of violence, discrimination and exclusion lead children worldwide to skip class or drop out of school entirely. Too often, this can happen in places where learning poverty is already high. And too often, it happens because education systems inadvertently reproduce the harmful norms, behaviours and stereotypes that thwart social equity and prosperity. 

But when policymakers understand how children, parents and school managers experience the education system, they can design more effective policies and programmes for safe, inclusive schools. 

UNICEF’s SBC approach to education examines every level of the system to identify and address social, behavioural and intersectional barriers to learning. We help decision makers better understand why children are out of school, or left behind in learning, by looking beyond resource constraints to create safe, inclusive learning environments for every child.

Child protection

Millions of children who suffer abuse, exploitation and even violence do so at the hands of adults meant to protect them. In some places, extreme forms of discipline at home or in school are considered acceptable. In others, harmful practices like child marriage and female genital mutilation are seen as a way to safeguard a girl’s future. UNICEF uses various SBC methods to strengthen its child protection programming, especially by supporting people to better understand and change behaviours that cause harm to children.

Identifying the individual, social and economic determinants of child protection violations is key to transforming harmful behaviours. It’s also key to promoting positive behaviours that can prevent or reduce harm – for example, the uptake of birth registration or positive parenting techniques.

UNICEF uses a range of SBC approaches to design, implement and evaluate our child protection programming – like formative research, community engagement, social movements, community-based psychosocial support, empowerment programmes, edutainment, social listening and user-focused system strengthening. This often means working with communities – especially children, parents and civil society leaders – to identify their own solutions and co-develop tools to embrace positive alternatives.

Nutrition

Good nutrition is a fundamental human right. But today, nearly a third of the world’s children under 5 are affected by malnutrition in its most visible forms – they’re undernourished (resulting in “stunting” or “wasting”) or overweight. Less visible forms of malnutrition, such as hidden hunger, occur when children become deficient in vitamins and other essential micronutrients. These micronutrient deficiencies can cause delayed physical growth, weakened immune systems and impaired brain development.

UNICEF works to prevent all forms of malnutrition by improving children’s access to nutritious, affordable and sustainable diets. We also work to improve demand for these diets and create healthier food environments.

Our SBC approach to child nutrition programming identifies social and behavioural factors that influence the diets of mothers and children. We help families make healthier food decisions by providing services, products and messages related to what they value and what they can change – from selecting and handling food, to preparing meals, to forming healthy eating habits. Behavioural insights also allow us to support the development of policies that promote healthier food environments, and conduct advocacy to encourage community support for these policies.

Across the food system, SBC initiatives engage suppliers and consumers to co-create effective interventions. For example, programmes that provide nutrition counselling to caregivers, or that tackle food taboos for pregnant and breastfeeding women, or empower young people to advocate for policy changes – all play a role in improving nutrition outcomes for children.

Together, behavioural insights help countries develop better food and nutrition policies and build greater resilience within communities.

Health

Millions of women and children die every year from preventable causes. Many don’t have access to quality health care, including for their mental health and psychosocial well-being. Others may not know the risk or severity of diseases they face, leading them to prioritize other urgent needs.

UNICEF works worldwide to support the delivery of quality health services to underserved communities. Our SBC programme identifies the structural, social, cognitive and behavioural factors that affect health outcomes, to help put people at the centre of the system.

This means connecting policymakers to data and insights (especially in applied behavioural science) that improve the development, implementation and evaluation of public health policies and programmes. It means connecting service providers with tools to enhance quality and access. And it means connecting families with information and resources on health services and practices.

We focus on interventions that help end preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths – like strengthening primary health care, and prioritizing “last mile” communities who have traditionally been deprived of services. We also help ensure that, when humanitarian emergencies strike, those most vulnerable – including children, mothers and people living with disabilities – are the first to be protected with care.

One of the most effective ways to do this is by strengthening communities from within.

Community engagement drives UNICEF’s SBC approach to health care. Building on trust, accountability and social justice, our programme embraces the role every member holds in creating progress – whether parent, nurse, teacher, student or religious leader.  

Immunization

Vaccines are among the greatest advances in global health and development. For more than two hundred years, they’ve safely reduced the scourge of diseases like polio, measles and smallpox, helping children grow up healthy and happy.

Despite longstanding benefits, immunization levels continue to be too low. Millions of children miss out on life-saving vaccines annually. The most poor and marginalized – often most in need of vaccines – remain the least likely to get them. Many live in places affected by conflict, displacement, or, increasingly, vaccine misinformation.

That’s why UNICEF focuses not only on vaccine supply and delivery, but also on demand. Our SBC programme aims to reduce the spread of misinformation and ensure that families have access to accurate data on immunization so they can make the best decisions for their children.

We engage communities in designing, delivering and assessing vaccination efforts – starting by listening. Our teams work directly with parents to understand their fears and concerns. We also know that local health workers are better positioned than anyone to address them. As one of the most trusted sources of information on health and vaccines, health workers play a key role in building vaccine confidence.

UNICEF’s SBC approach to immunization includes strengthening the quality of interactions between health workers and communities. We partner with frontline workers and other trusted community leaders, like faith leaders, to help them combat misinformation and ease caregivers’ concerns.

At the national level, we also strengthen the capacity of countries to apply behavioural insights through implementation research, social listening and infodemic management.

Humanitarian emergencies

Every year, UNICEF responds to more humanitarian emergencies than nearly any organization on the planet. When conflict or climate-related disaster strikes, UNICEF staff are on the ground, delivering life-saving aid to children and their families. There’s nothing more crucial to humanitarian operations than being prepared.

UNICEF uses evidence from social and interdisciplinary science to develop swift, effective action plans for responding to armed conflict, public health emergencies and natural disasters. We prioritize the knowledge and experiences of the communities we seek to serve, engaging them directly in preparedness efforts to help ensure humanitarian action leads to intended results, without inflicting unintended consequences.

This means localizing all aspects of preparedness and response, from needs assessment and resource mobilization to implementation and evaluation. Even before an emergency happens, UNICEF works to strengthen local institutions and coordination mechanisms, building the resilience of communities at risk while preparing them to participate in relief efforts. During the emergency response, we take actions to ensure communities in crisis get immediate, life-saving information – and a say in how their needs are prioritized and met.

SBC approaches to humanitarian action allow UNICEF to create rapid, clear and essential lines of communication among aid workers, government officials and affected communities. They also allow us to collect community feedback and behavioural data that our teams and partners use to swiftly coordinate multisectoral interventions, improving service delivery for children and their families.

In all these ways and more, SBC can help children living through humanitarian emergencies receive aid that protects their lives, and their dignity.

>Learn more in UNICEF’s Advanced e-Course