Promoting gender equality and changing social norms through youth engagement in Benin

Restrictive gender norms have a significant impact on women's lives, limiting their autonomy, human capital (Baird et al., 2019, Creanga et al, 2011), health (Dhar et al, 2022), and income-generating activities (Jayachandran, 2021). In Benin, where approximately 5 million women reside (World Bank, 2015), girls are expected to focus on domestic responsibilities from a young age, leading to lower educational attainment and restricted decision-making power (Séne, 2010; DHS 2018).

Child marriage and violence are prevalent: over 30% of women aged 20-49 are married before 18, and the same number experience domestic violence (UNICEF, 2017). Women also have limited control over healthcare decisions, as 46% of married women report that their husbands make these decisions alone (INSAE, 2017).

To overcome the challenges, cost-effective interventions targeting gender norms could empower women and improve their health outcomes.

Plan International's Champions of Change (CoC) program empowers teenagers to champion gender equality in their communities. Both girls and boys who volunteer undergo 60 hours of in-person training tailored to address key life skills, delivered by program facilitators. This includes topics like assertiveness, body confidence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, sexuality, and gender equality. Moreover, these Champions of Change are familiarized with basic advocacy concepts and motivated to organize activities for their peers to positively influence them. Traditional interventions rely on participants self-selecting, treating everyone involved.

The current Champions of Change program, in contrast, employs optimal targeting, selecting identified champions for training, potentially boosting intervention impact.

FID funding enables Plan International to conduct an evaluation to determine whether targeting

1. "norms influencers" (socially influential adolescents) or
2. "advocates" (individuals with low effort costs for advocacy) or
3. self-selected volunteers

is more effective in influencing peers and communities.

Furthermore, the team is exploring how policymakers can effectively target social programs by considering community characteristics, such as the type (progressive vs. conservative) and origin (advocacy vs. mimicking) of norms.

The Champions of Change intervention has been implemented in 27 countries, yielding positive outcomes related to self-esteem, influence, and involvement in decision-making processes.

As a result of the curriculum, the team expects that the trained champions will have:

• Raised knowledge about gender inequality and more gender-equal attitudes
• Increased aspirations and agency
• More gender-equal behavior
• Increased dialogue with parents/caregivers, siblings and peers about gender equality
• Improved aspirations to promote change within the community

The study will also allow to see whether these results can be found in the community where the Champions live, and to observe whether one of the methods for selecting champions proves to be more effective.

The empowerment curriculum is delivered in 240 rural communities in Benin, benefiting youth in the program communities and neighboring areas. The findings of the study will improve the delivery of Champions of Change programs worldwide and benefit adolescents in similar programs and projects.