Norms Changing Strategies - West Africa Lessons

Lessons from West Africa on norms changing strategies - Judi Aubel and Mamadou Coulibaly

In our work in West Africa over the past 15 years, we have focused on developing strategies to promote change in social norms – first, related to maternal and child health and nutrition (MCHN) and, since 2010, related to girls’ holistic development (addressing girls’ education, child marriage, teen pregnancy and female genital mutilation - FGM).  

Based on our experiences developing strategies to shift social norms dealing with these different public health issues, we identify several lessons learned regarding: first, who should be involved in such strategies; and second, what communication/education approaches are most effective in promoting community-driven norms change.  Here, we will discuss how we have addressed these two facets of social norms shifting efforts and what we have learned that could be useful to others.  

First of all, determining whom to involve in social norms change strategies depends on assumptions regarding the origins of social norms and on understanding the power dynamics within families and communities.  Mainstream thinking on social norms, influenced primarily by concepts from psychology, assumes that “social norms are in the mind” (Cislaghi & Heise, 2020, p. 412) and that programs should involve the reference groups of those affected by the targeted norm/s – for example, child marriage.  

In contrast, our work builds on concepts from anthropology and on the hierarchical structure of non-western societies in the Global South.  From this vantage point, social norms are embedded in culture (Edberg & Krieger, 2020). In non-western societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America and in indigenous cultures in North America, Australia and New Zealand, it is the elders who are culturally responsible for transmitting the traditional norms to the younger generations and for enforcing them (Nsamenang, 1992).  The predominant role and influence of elders in non-western societies does not seem to be fully understood nor appreciated by people from the western world.  Cameroonian social scientist Nsamenang, in his seminal book, Human Development in Cultural Context: A Third World Perspective (1992), calls on development professionals from the Global North to give greater attention to the critical role played by elders in African societies in order to increase the cultural relevance of the programs they develop.  He asserts that “understanding the significance of respect for seniority and obedience to elders and superiors is a key to decoding West African behavior” (p. 148). Based on our experience, we believe that Nsamenang’s assertion is relevant to the current discussions on the need to give greater consideration to contextual factors and to decolonize development policies and programs.

Examples of social norms that are embedded in culture and transmitted by elders include: food taboos for pregnant women; breastfeeding practices with newborns; prioritizing boys’ education over girls’; families’ roles in arranging marriages of their very young daughters; and FGM.  From our experience, the elders’ involvement in perpetuating such social norms supports the imperative to actively involve them in norms shifting strategies in order to gain their support for change rather than ignoring their influence and putting them on the defensive to possibly oppose the change.  

Following this line of reasoning, a key lesson we draw from our experience is that norms shifting efforts should involve not only those affected by the targeted norm/s but also those who contribute, either directly or indirectly, to preserving them. In the case of pregnant women, who suffer from a taboo that forbids them from eating eggs, norms shifting efforts should not only involve them but also involve those who are responsible for transmitting and enforcing that harmful norm.  In most contexts, this would mean that pregnant women’s mothers, mothers-in-law and other women in their social environment should be involved in programs.  

Given that social norms are culturally grounded and collectively practiced, norms shifting strategies should promote collective change through involvement of all key family and community actors.  Of course, not all categories of family and community actors can be involved to the same extent, and therefore, at the outset, it is important to determine the roles and degree of influence of each type of actor.  For this purpose, we developed a participatory assessment tool, Focus on Families and Culture.

Another significant aspect of community systems that should be taken into account in designing social norms change strategies is the formal and informal leaders, sometimes referred to as gatekeepers. While formal leaders are easily identified, it is often the informal leaders, of both sexes and of different generations, who have greater influence on the attitudes and values adopted by families.  Local leaders play a key role in promoting the survival and well-being of their communities, and they also have considerable influence on others, within their own peer groups and in the wider community. As gatekeepers, when programs promote change in social norms, as in the case of child marriage, leaders can either support the change or support perpetuation of existing norms, and, in turn, they influence their followers to adopt or reject the proposed change.  A priority lesson learned is that in addition to the elders, norm changing strategies should involve community leaders, formal and informal, in order to challenge them to reconsider existing social norms and potentially become advocates for change.  In our Girls Holistic Development (GHD) program initial work with communities involves identification of the informal leaders, and program activities primarily involve both formal and informal leaders of three generations, male and female.  

A second fundamental element that can contribute to community-wide social norms change is the type of communication/education approach and methods used.  Based on our experience, there are two key aspects of the approach that can contribute to shifting social norms. First, it should catalyze discussion and consensus-building both within and between community groups (by age and by sex). The diagram above (when viewing this contribution online - see link below) illustrates the process of community wide involvement in dialogue in our GHD program, which strengthens communication relationships and catalyzes collective reflection on priority social norms of concern to communities and/or to our program. In our approach, the community dialogue takes place through a series of participatory activities involving different community actors at different points in time.

Based on our experience, a further key aspect of strategies to promote community support for shifting social norms is that they should be based on an adult education transformational learning approach rather than on a message-driven approach.  The predominant communication and education approach used in community programs focuses on providing convincing information to community members to describe priority problems, such as child marriage, and to propose solutions for communities to implement.  The grandfather of adult education, Brazilian Paolo Freire, referred to this widely used approach as a banking approach. It is often assumed that providing community members with adequate information on a problem will persuade them to adopt new attitudes and that once there is a critical mass of supporters for change that the community norm will shift.

In contrast, Freire proposed a problem-posing approach to use with community groups to elicit collective reflection on real-life situations that can lead to community-driven transformational learning that supports norms change. The transformational learning approach challenges community actors to analyze their own lived experiences, to consider new information or ideas, and to decide whether change in existing attitudes and norms is required, and, if so, what actions they can take to promote such change.  Adult transformative learning that leads to norm shifting can come about: with groups in which there is preexisting social cohesion between members; in safe places where people feel comfortable expressing themselves; with support from facilitators who remain neutral in their position related to the issue discussed, who respect the attitudes and beliefs expressed by all participants, who prioritize interaction and reflection between participants over message retention; and with facilitators who do not aim to coerce community members into changing their attitudes in a short period of time.

The justification for working with groups of community actors in social norms change efforts is also supported by the collectivist structure and values of African and other non-western cultures.  University of Botswana Professor of adult education Peggy Ntseane (2011) calls attention to the need for greater consideration of key facets of cultural context that influence both individual and collective learning and change – foremost the fact that “the African worldview is collective” (p. 312).  She critiques the prevalent western assumption upon which many community change programs are conceived: that individuals can make autonomous decisions to adopt new attitudes and behaviors.  Ntseane supports her critique by referring to the concept that is echoed in sayings heard across African ethno-linguistic groups, that “there is no self without the collective” (p. 309).  Ntseane argues that this culturally engrained Afrocentric notion reflects the close relationship that exists between individuals and those around them. She asserts, furthermore, that in the African tradition, knowledge acquisition is derived through interaction with others and that individuals need the support of others in order to adopt new norms of behavior.  As a critic of western thinking and programs that focus on changing individual attitudes and behavior, she contends that in African contexts, norms shifting programs should reflect the centrality of collectivist values and that program design should be guided by the fact that “the change process itself has to be a collective one” (p. 318).  This assertion has definite implications for the choice of communication/education approaches and methods that aim to catalyze change in social norms.

In our program in West Africa, our norms changing strategy builds, on the one hand, on our understanding of collective African cultural values and learning traditions, and on the other, on insights from adult education on catalyzing group learning for change.  All the activities we have developed, as discussed above, are based on a problem-posing approach wherein groups of key community members are challenged to reflect on both existing norms and practices and alternative ideas and to come to their own consensus on whether and how norms and practices can be shifted.

In conclusion, we have shared our experience implementing social norm shifting strategies in West Africa. We believe that the lessons we have learned and shared here have wide relevance, especially for more collectivist cultures – related first, to the identification of the categories of community actors who should be involved in light of their influence within the wider community and second, to the type of communication/education methods used that are most effective in promoting collective and sustained change in societies where collectivist values are strong.  

References:

Aubel, J. & A. Rychtarik (2015) Focus on Families and Culture. Grandmother Project – Change through Culture for TOPS project funded by USAID, Washington D.C.
                                             
Cislaghi, B. & L. Heise (2020) Gender norms and social norms: differences, similarities and why they matter in prevention science.  Sociology of Health & Illness 42, 2, 407-22

Edberg, M. & L. Krieger (2020) Recontextualizing the social norms construct as applied to health promotion. Social Science & Med 10, 100560, 1-9.

Nsamenang, A. B. (1992) Human Development in Cultural Context: A Third World Perspective. Sage Publications. Newbury Park, CA.

Ntseane, P.  (2011)  Culturally Sensitive Transformational Learning: Incorporating the Afrocentric Paradigm and African Feminism. Adult Education Quarterly 61, 4, 307-23.