Social & Behaviour Change at UNICEF: SBC Programme Guidance

"How we address the development and humanitarian challenges ahead is highly dependent on social change, individual and collective behaviours, and quality people-centred approaches." - Sanjay Wijesekera, Director of Programmes, UNICEF

Social and behaviour change (SBC) is central to the realisation of global child rights and development goals and, in turn, to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)'s work and mandate. Intended to be useful both within and beyond UNICEF, this SBC programme guidance is designed to support efforts to fulfil the rights of children and their families through large-scale, positive transformation of communities and societies. It promotes co-creation, participation, and accountability measures as a standard practice, presenting community-driven approaches to change that respect the voices of vulnerable and marginalised children.

The SBC programme guidance reflects UNICEF's work with communities to understand what drives decision-making, which the organisation considers to be key to creating meaningful, sustainable change. UNICEF's guiding compass - to instil positive and protective practices for children in areas including immunisation, responsive parenting, healthy feeding and sanitation practices, and others - reflects the understanding that behavioural and social results are inextricably linked. "Sustained behaviour change often requires social change, as these practices frequently depend on their social acceptability, which depends on the dynamics, norms, stigmas and power relationships within a community." By ensuring that policies and programmes are behaviourally informed, designed with (not just for) communities, and tailored to local contexts, UNICEF hopes to increase their responsiveness to local needs, cultural appropriateness, ownership, and chances of success.

Rooted in this vision, the SBC programme guidance is designed as an interconnected web of resources, including framing documents, guidance notes, tools, and how-tos. These resources are organised into four sections, which represent different actions in the delivery of SBC programmes by UNICEF and its partners:

1. Vision - outlines UNICEF's conception of SBC, key results, ethical considerations, tools for advocacy, fundraising and budgeting, and your role within it (how to strengthen the SBC Guidance).
2. Understand - describes the fundamentals of SBC, including the UNICEF mindset on SBC and the key SBC approaches meant to support achievement of your results.
3. Create - includes guides on how to create your SBC plans and strategies to maximise impact through diagnosis, defining success, and design.
4. Do - features a toolkit for putting SBC into action and internal guides for UNICEF operations in areas including: implementing strategies; SBC in emergency settings; partnerships; and capacity building and supportive systems.

The online (vs. PDF) version of the SBC programme guidance enables the user to "Explore by Need", customising the resources to hone in on a specific question or issue. For example, a user curious about the ethics of SBC can access a Code of Ethics developed by the Global Alliance for Social and Behaviour Change, a coalition of organisations, including UNICEF, that is committed to advancing the scale, quality, impact, and sustainability of SBC efforts. UNICEF considers the principles in the Code, a living document, to be an integral part of its SBC programme guidance. The Code is in line with UNICEF's human-rights-based approach, as it "is intended to signify the privilege that should be accorded to underserved communities (those least likely to possess the power to represent their own interests) and drive the co-creative processes we engage them in."

UNICEF collaborated with Common Thread to facilitate, draft, and design this SBC programme guidance.