Annex C.

C4D at UNICEF

Communication for Development (C4D) in UNICEF is defined as a systematic,

planned and evidence-based strategic process to promote engagement of communities
and positive and measurable individual behaviour and social change that is an integral
part of development programmes and humanitarian work. It uses research and
consultative processes to promote human rights, mobilize leadership and societies,
enable citizen participation, influence norms and attitudes and support the behaviours
of those who have an impact on the well-being of children, their families and
communities, especially the most marginalized or hard-to-reach. C4D has been
mainstreamed across UNICEF and has shown strong impact across several areas, most
notably in child survival, the response to humanitarian crises and health emergencies
including Ebola and Polio, exclusive breastfeeding and supplementary feeding, hand-
washing and sanitation, prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV, and
malaria and diarrhea prevention among others.

Working in partnership with national governments, civil society organizations and

other development agencies, UNICEF C4D uses a mix of approaches which include
longer-term efforts aimed at both influencing long-standing harmful social norms and
fostering new protective behaviors, through sustained community dialogue and
analysis, framing of positive public narratives, and stimulating social non-acceptance
of negative social practices, especially gender inequities. Specifically, this consists of:

  Behaviour Change Communication: use of participatory and

interpersonal communication, and marketing techniques and tools, to inform,
influence & involve individuals, households & opinion leaders in adopting new
attitudes and/or behaviours 


  Communication for Social Change: engaging & empowering

communities & networks to positively influence and/or reinforce social norms
and social practices

  Social Mobilization: engaging wide network of partners/ stakeholders

(e.g. civil society – non- governmental organizations, youth groups, women’s
groups, community-based organizations and faith-based organizations) around
a common cause 


  dvocacy: linking perspectives, concerns, and voices of girls, boys,

women and men from marginalized groups to upstream policy dialogue to
facilitate increased demand and accountability for quality services 


The range of audiences and participant groups that UNICEF works for and with across
country and programming contexts include children, their parents and caregivers,
community-based service providers including health, social and community-based
workers, media and communication personnel, cultural and performing arts groups,
local celebrities, popular opinion leaders, local religious leaders and traditional heads
of communities, national and sub-national level policy and decision makers, political
and other influential leaders.

See the following website for more information on UNICEF C4D approaches,
principles, practice and process: http://www.unicef.org/cbsc/index.html.

In many of the countries in which UNICEF works, the organization is leading efforts
in collaboration with national governments and other partners, to coordinate evidence-
based, intensive social mobilization and communication activities, tailoring them to
reach target populations at scale with a focus on the under-served and the most
marginalized groups across sectors. Within the Global Polio Eradication Initiative
(GPEI) for instance UNICEF is the lead agency on communication and social
mobilization and is currently making the last push to free the world of polio. In several
countries, UNICEF is leading strategic communication work around the ‘Scaling-Up
of Nutrition (SUN)’ global movement to reduce malnutrition, and is actively
promoting the ‘End Violence Against Children’ campaign for increased attention to
child protection issues. In the area of water, sanitation and hygiene, UNICEF has been
actively utilizing and promoting community based social change approaches including
the community led total sanitation (CLTS) methodology in making communities open
defecation free. Within HIV/AIDs work, UNICEF has been promoting large scale
prevention campaigns among pregnant mothers and adolescents. In areas such as
Education, Gender, Early Child Development, Adolescents and Disability UNICEF is
drawing upon C4D strategies to accelerate uptake of positive behaviors, strengthen
community-led social accountability and address stigma and discrimination.

In addition, UNICEF has a long history of working in emergencies and humanitarian

contexts, wherein the role of C4D in UNICEF’s emergency response and preparedness
supported efforts is increasingly being recognized. In 2014, for instance, UNICEF was
called upon to play a lead role in communication and social mobilization for the UN-
wide global response to the unprecedented Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Within that
response, the C4D section took a leadership role in UNICEF’s community-based
strategies in the affected countries, which reached nearly 3 million households, and
contributed to negotiation and uptake of behaviours that helped to sustain or accelerate
reductions in transmission.

Today, various factors, such as the changing development context, significant cross-
border movement of refugees and migrants, shrinking aid environment, the emerging
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, rapid evolution of new ICTs and social
media, as well as growth in the number of middle income economies, are impacting
the role and work of UNICEF across different regional and country contexts.

Strategic Plan

Furthermore, new foci and priorities in the organization as a whole have in turn
created new areas of emphasis for its C4D work. UNICEF’s C4D efforts in the
coming years will be aligned with organizational commitments described in the
Strategic Plan, 2018-2021 (herein referred to as “SP”). The SP defines five
interlinked goal areas within which UNICEF can deliver results for all children in
support of the SDGs. “Programming excellence” has been identified as one of the key
change strategies for achieving the goals of the SP. Communication for Development
is one of the pillars of the “programme excellence” change strategy which will support
community engagement, demand for services, promotion of healthy and protective
behaviours, and changes in harmful attitudes, behaviour and social norms. C4D will
play a lead role in this work.

The five goal areas of UNICEF’s SP and the priority contributions of C4D to the
results areas are summarized here. For further details on the SP, please see
https://www.unicef.org/about/execboard/files/Update_on_the_UNICEF_SP_2018-
2021-FEB2017.pdf

Strategic Plan, 2018-2021 Goal Areas

Goal Area 1: Every child survives and thrives: Result areas for this goal address,
among others, nutrition, maternal and newborn care, immunization, early childhood
development, HIV/AIDS and gender-responsive adolescent health and nutrition.

Goal Area 2: Every child learns: Result areas for this goal address, among others,
access to education for girls and boys, increasing learning outcomes, and access to
skills.

Goal Area 3: Every child is protected from violence and exploitation: Result areas
for this goal address, among others, prevention and response services for violence
against children; prevention and care intervention to address harmful and traditional
practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage

Goal Area 4: Every child lives in a safe and clean environment: Result areas for
this goal address, among others, access to safe and sustainable drinking water; access
to sanitation and hygiene; response to disasters, conflict and public health
emergencies; child-responsive urban settings; environmental pollution and climate
change

Goal Area 5: Every child has an equitable change in life: Result areas for this goal
address, among others, gender equality; adolescent empowerment; multidimensional
child poverty; social inclusion; and support for girls and boys with disabilities.

To support results within these goal areas, C4D focuses on strategies and approaches
that advance:

1. positive behaviour and social change, and the abandonment of harmful social
norms and practices, and stimulation of social non-acceptance of violence.
2. increased demand for and utilization of quality and inclusive services across all
sectors;
3. engagement and empowerment of children and communities;
4. effective communication and community engagement in humanitarian action;
and
5. creation of an enabling environment for social and behaviour change.
Specifically, in alignment with the five SP goal areas and their associated result areas,
C4D programming in the next four years will emphasis a number of cross-sectoral
priority thematic areas, including:

Adolescent and Youth Engagement: Adolescents' (10-19 years) are addressed across
all five SP goal areas, with adolescent specific results mainstreamed under each goal,
with an emphasis on lower secondary education, learning outcomes and acquiring
skills for life and work; ending child marriage; prevention and response to violence;
and adolescent empowerment and engagement. As part of an Adolescent and Youth
Engagement Strategic Framework, developed in 2017, UNICEF C4D supports cross-
sectoral engagement of adolescents and youth as partners in the development process,
along with the development and utilization of new platforms and mechanisms to
amplify adolescent and youth voices. The framework lays out a number of key
strategies, many of which call on C4D contributions, for example, building adolescent
capacities, information and skills; supporting multimedia engagement (blogs, music,
citizen journalism, media); facilitating adolescent engagement in policy discussions
and institutionalizing participation mechanisms (e.g., student councils, parliaments) to
influence services, policies, legislation, and budgets; supporting adolescents to lead in
data collection, analysis and advocacy to inform decision making; and leveraging
innovations such as U Report and other mobile technologies to enable adolescent
involvement in data collection and knowledge sharing.

Humanitarian Action and Health Emergency Response: UNICEF is accountable

for principled humanitarian action, which seeks to protect the lives and dignity of
children at risk and affected by crises and promote their rights in accordance with
international human rights and humanitarian law. Among its core measurable
contributions to the new SP’s main goal areas, UNICEF C4D is positioned to support
the enhanced capacity and engagement of communities in humanitarian action by
increasing UNICEF’s surge capacity on disease outbreak communication, establishing
a social and anthropological research platform, and harmonizing quality standards and
guidance for C4D. As expressed in the SP, UNICEF is also committed to supporting
countries in adopting policies, strategies and programmes that address risks related to
health emergencies. C4D-led risk communication and community engagement are
critical to supporting countries in preparing for and responding to health emergencies.
Learning from its engagement in the Ebola crisis, UNICEF is improving coordination
and technical capacity and leadership to support governments in national and local-
level response efforts, including greater use of social and anthropological data and
evidence to guide communication engagement and response, including in the on-going
Zika response, the Yellow Fever outbreak in Angola and DRC, the recent Ebola
outbreak in DRC, and the current resurgence of cholera in Yemen.

The previous LTAs covering the 2014-2017 SP provided critical technical expertise
during such disease outbreaks and humanitarian crises. It is expected that the LTAs
proposed in this RFPS will continue to provide such expertise, supporting context-
appropriate behaviour and social change communication outputs and activities, based
on at-risk and affected people’s inputs and feedback, and in identifying and
establishing mechanisms to ensure that feedback from affected people informs data
analysis for planning, monitoring, and programme adjustments for humanitarian and
health emergencies.

Gender Equality: An emphasis on gender equality is integrated across all five goals
areas of UNICEF’s SP. The change strategies identified for achieving the new SP
goals also call for the mainstreaming of gender analysis within programming at scale,
and for a greater emphasis on gender-focused communication and advocacy. A new
Gender Action Plan is being developed to align with the new SP and to serve as the
organization’s roadmap for supporting the achievement of gender equality goals as
outlined in Agenda 2030. The GAP has a dual focus on integration of gender results
across the 5 goal areas of the SP as well as on a set of targeted priorities centered on
the empowerment and well-being of adolescent girls which include: Promoting
adolescent girls’ nutrition, pregnancy care and prevention from HIV/AIDS and HPV;
Advancing adolescent girls secondary education, skills including STEM; Preventing
and responding to child marriage; Preventing and responding to gender-based violence
in emergencies; and facilitating accessible and dignified menstrual hygiene
management. In support of these priorities, C4D efforts will focus on gender norm
change, especially through mass media approaches such as entertainment education,
as well as new technology platforms; involving parents and adolescents in gender-
equitable socialization initiatives; and the development of systems-level approaches
and service delivery at scale to address gender inequality and related practices such as
child marriage.

Early Childhood Development: Another central C4D target contribution within the
new SP includes a commitment to increasing the uptake of positive parenting and
community practices in early childhood development and the first 1000 days of a
child’s life. This contribution includes a commitment to deepening and extending
engagement strategies with parents, caregivers and communities in a way that will
lead to improved skills and sustained behaviour and social change in parenting and
caregiving; increased understanding and motivation for positive parenting, and
parental awareness and demand for services and public dialogue on the importance of
brain development; showing, helping, and supporting parents/caregivers to understand
how to nurture and stimulate the brains of their young children during their first 1,000
days of life; and mobilizing communities to support parenting education and
recognition.

Children with Disabilities: Within the new SP and SDGs, UNICEF’s work has
placed a renewed and intensified focus on identifying and addressing the root causes
of inequity so that all children – particularly those who face the worst deprivations in
society – can realize their rights. This equity-based approach is the foundation of both
UNICEF disability agenda (https://www.unicef.org/disabilities/) and UNICEF C4D’s
commitment to the social inclusion of children and young people with disabilities
across programme areas, as well as supporting efforts to eliminate stigma and
discrimination. This involves using a range of C4D social and behaviour change
strategies and channels to: change public opinion and perception regarding children
with disabilities; identify and disseminate data that raises awareness about the
policies and rights of children with disabilities at the local and national level; and
increase social mobilization and capacity development efforts of state and non-state
partners and communities to produce and disseminate positive strategic narratives and
media content regarding children with disabilities.

Violence against Children and Harmful and Traditional Practices: A key area of
work for C4D in support of Goal 3 of the new SP includes changing behaviours and
attitudes, and fostering social norms that support non-violence and the abandonment
of harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C)
and child marriage. UNICEF has been working with a range of partnerships to bring
greater focus to violence against children, child marriage and FGM/C within global
and national agendas. In particular, UNICEF plays key roles in the following global
partnerships and programmes: Global Programme on Child Marriage
(https://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_92681.html), the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint
Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (http://www.unfpa.org/joint-
programme-female-genital-mutilationcutting), and ‘End Violence Against Children:
The Global Partnership’ (http://www.end-violence.org/). In the coming years, C4D
efforts will be further aligned with these global programs, prioritizing multi-platform
social change initiatives to stimulate protective behaviors, support the abandonment of
harmful social norms and behaviors, and increase the capacity of social workforces
across the countries and sectors that UNICEF works. In particular, C4D has a
leadership role in supporting countries in adopting strategies and at-scale
programming, that include: designing, implementing and evaluating community
engagement initiatives that involve families, community members, service providers,
faith-based organizations and other civil society influencers; leveraging mass media
partnerships to produce entertainment education programming that promote non-
violent practices and gender equitable socialization and that stimulate protective social
norms; and developing effective frameworks and methodologies for measuring and
tracking changes in attitudes, behaviors and social norms.