Powerful Partnerships: Engaging Faith Leaders in Norms-Shifting Interventions

In many contexts, faith leaders are a key reference group within programs who have specific, recognized, and institutionalized power in a community. As power holders they are seen to hold considerable influence over the emergence of social norms, have a stake in maintaining or reinforcing existing norms, and can also be change agents to support shifting norms. Because of the power they hold, it is important to engage faith leaders effectively when looking to shift community norms to support behavior change for improved health and wellbeing. In this brief, we share implementation insights and recommendations on partnering with faith leaders and supporting them as change agents to promote norms change, improve reproductive health, and prevent gender-based violence.