South Asia Social Norms Learning Collaborative

The South Asia Social Norms Learning Collaborative is a consortium that aims to build a network of researchers, implementers, donors, and others interested in working on social norms in South Asia.

Social norms are the informal, primarily unwritten, rules that define acceptable, appropriate, and obligatory actions in a given group or society. Over the past decade, the influence of undesirable social norms such as those connected to gender-based violence, childbearing, and women's economic engagement has received more attention. As more programmes strive to promote norms that support healthy behaviours, there is an opportunity to expand our understanding of social norms: what they are, how to measure them, how they influence behaviour, and how to scale up promising norm-shifting interventions.

The South Asia Social Norms Learning Collaborative (SA-SNLC) is part of a network of communities under the Learning Collaborative to Advance Normative Change. Launched in 2016 with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and support from USAID through the Passages Project, the Learning Collaborative catalysed a global network of researchers, practitioners and donors to advance social norms theory, measurement and practice.

Over 300 members from more than 100 organisations work together to synthesise and share new evidence and learning on social norms, advancing the understanding of social norms interventions and their costs, scale-up considerations and evaluation practices. The collaboration has resulted in a cumulative journal supplement on social norms in the Journal of Adolescent Health and numerous resources and tools, which have been implemented in 30+ countries and 50+ interventions. Several capacity-building workshops have also been held to advance knowledge, skills and design of social norms interventions.

The Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), Ashoka University and Project Concern International (PCI), India, host the Secretariat of the Collaborative in South Asia. The Learning Collaborative aims to engage with organisations and individuals who work on norms and behaviour practices in health, nutrition, WASH, and gender in the region.

Members of the South Asia Social Norms Learning Collaborative represent a variety of eminent institutions: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Breakthrough India, Kantar, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), BBC Media Action, CARE, WaterAid, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), IPE Global, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), to name a few.

The objectives of this initiative are to:

• Share state-of-the-art social norms evidence, approaches and resources.
• Strengthen connections among researchers, implementers and donors to generate evidence.
• Improve practice towards use of social norms.
• Build capacity among local implementers to improve gender and social norms programming.

In its first year, the South Asia Social Norms Learning Collaborative has provided a platform for in-depth discussions on bridging the gap between theory and practice in social norms programming, the intersection of behavioural science and norm change, and women's collectives as norm change agents. It has also facilitated a workshop on capacity-building in social norms programming. The experience, expertise, and insight of the community are sure to provide sustained meaningful engagement in the years to come.

---