The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative
As of March 15 2025, The Communication Initiative (The CI) platform is operating at a reduced level, with no new content being posted to the global website and registration/login functions disabled. (La Iniciativa de Comunicación, or CILA, will keep running.) While many interactive functions are no longer available, The CI platform remains open for public use, with all content accessible and searchable until the end of 2025. 

Please note that some links within our knowledge summaries may be broken due to changes in external websites. The denial of access to the USAID website has, for instance, left many links broken. We can only hope that these valuable resources will be made available again soon. In the meantime, our summaries may help you by gleaning key insights from those resources. 

A heartfelt thank you to our network for your support and the invaluable work you do.
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Social Norms Network

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Social Norms Network

Hi and best wishes to everyone in The Communication Initiative network (The CI). In partnership with The CI we have just launched The Social Norms Network.

A focus on social norms is vital for development progress across all development issues in all contexts. Predominant social norms play a significant role in policies that are adopted, resources that are allocated, the people who exercise influence, the space people have to express their voices and perspectives, the choices that are made, and the priorities governments and organisations adopt and pursue.

Within The Social Norms Network you are able to:

1. Find and review shared social norms programme experiences, strategic thinking and research from others in the network related to specific development priorities - for example Sexual and Reproductive Health  - or development strategies - eg Community Engagement. Please keep checking in as this shared knowledge will grow. 

2. Access full documents and/or summaries for the resource and support materials developed by the Social Norms Learning Collaborative - for example:

Social Norms Exploration Tool (SNET);

Monitoring Shifts in Social Norms;

Resources for Measuring Social Norms; and, the

Social Norms Atlas. 

3. Contact the people in the network who have shared their knowledge, experience, insight and data for further insights and ideas - for example (you will need to be logged in for security reasons) click on the network contact people identified in these summaries and then click Contact to email them in private:  

Gender Norms and Social Norms: Differences, Similarities and Why They Matter in Prevention Science

Understanding How Social Norms Affect Modern Contraceptive Use

Associations between Village-level Norms on Marital Age and Marital Choice Outcomes among Adolescent Wives in Rural Niger

Enabling Gender Norm Change through Communication: A Case Study of a Trans-Media Entertainment-Education Initiative in Bangladesh

4. Share your own experience, knowledge and learning on addressing and working with social norms through either the Create Group News brief form (you will need to log in) at this link or email Warren Feek at wfeek@comminit.com

5. Participate in forthcoming network dialogues on the social norms related issues you face and challenges you are seeking to overcome - everyone will be encouraged to both share these issues and problems and respond with ideas and suggestions. Please keep an eye out for these discussion posts over the next few weeks.

The Social Norms Learning Collaborative is delighted to be partnering with The Communication Initiative in this vital area of work. All comments most welcome - just reply to this email.

With many thanks and wishing you much strength for your very important work.

Best wishes

Rebecka

Rebecka Lundgren, MPH, Ph.D.
Director - Passages and the Social Norms Learning Collaborative
Associate Professor
Infectious Diseases & Global Public Health
University of California at San Diego