Designing Social Protection with Gender Norms in Mind: Evidence on What Works

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Social Policy Department

Gender, Social Protection and Labor

Community of Practice

Clara Delavallade

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January 28th, 2026

Presentation structure

1. Rationale: Why norms matter for SP effectiveness

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• Designing low-cost SP add-ons that improve gender outcomes without directly challenging norms

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• When and how SP can challenge gender norms — evidence of what works and reducing backfiring risks

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DO GENDER NORMS SHAPE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL PROTECTION ?

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Evidence from a large-scale government agribusiness program in Nigeria

Do Gender Norms Shape the Effectiveness of SP interventions: Evidence from Nigeria APPEALS�

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Intervention and GIL’s study

• Context: SES training layered onto a government SP-adjacent program

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• APPEALS WYEP: Government of Nigeria agribusiness program
• Technical and Business training
• Mentoring
• Input grants ($5,300)
• Business Plan preparation

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• SES added as a low-cost add-on (US$137 per participant)

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• Randomized evaluation, ~4,500 men and women

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• Two SES variants: interpersonal only vs. interpersonal + intrapersonal

SES works — but much more in norm-supportive environments

Effects are strongest where women face less community judgment for defying traditional breadwinner norms.

DESIGNING SOCIAL PROTECTION TO WORK UNDER EXISTING GENDER NORMS

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Low-cost design adaptations that improve take-up and effectiveness

Designing SP to Work under Existing Gender Norms: �Care responsibilities constrain women’s participation

Number of hours devoted to childcare:

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• Gender norms shape roles (care, mobility, time)

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• SP can relax constraints without confronting norms

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• Care work disproportionately borne by women

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• Care limits time, mobility, and presence required by SP programs

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• This is widespread, not context-specific

Designing SP to Work under Existing Gender Norms: Relaxing care constraints through context-specific design

• Rural childcare provision in the DRC, managed by community-elected women
• Open 5 days/week, 6 hours/day
• Max of 9 children per provider (average 9), ages 2-6
• The structured program follows national standards and is inspired by international best practices in ECD.
• Food: co-financing of lunch (center and parents 50%)
• Basic equipment (chairs, mats, first-aid kit, a few toys, hand-washing stations...)

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• Ethiopia: managed by public works participants

A fixed model with governance adapted to context

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Designing SP to Work under Existing Gender Norms: Relaxing care constraints through context-specific design

• At public works sites 🡺 appropriate for dispersed worksites
• Full-coverage tents or existing secure areas
• Open during working hours; Meals / snacks provided
• Capacity for 50 children aged 0 to 6
• Nominal parental contribution for snacks (75 CFA -> 0.12 USD/day)

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What have we learned?

• Demand and take up are high, even in settings with no previous formal childcare experience (although households very sensitive to costs)
• ↑ women’s participation in programs. High impacts for both women and men on economic outcomes (income, productivity, employment) and on well-being
• ↑ early childhood development
• Provision can be tailored

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Mobile models – Burkina Faso and Cameroon

Benin PEJ: Design alignment closed the gender gap in completion

Program context

• National youth employment program (PEJ)
• Vocational + life skills training
• Mixed-gender cohorts
• High female dropout in standard design

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Design adaptations

• Shorter, more predictable training days
• Scheduling aligned with women’s time constraints
• Light care and psychosocial support
• No change to curriculum
• No norm messaging or sensitization

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Binding constraints

• Rigid training schedules
• Misalignment with care responsibilities
• Psychosocial overload (fatigue, stress)

Designing SP to Work under Existing Gender Norms: Small design tweaks can dramatically improve outcomes

Minimal additional cost

Congo TVET: Providing information enabled women to consider higher-return trades

• More women selected higher-return trades. Higher expected earnings
• Reduced occupational segregation

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• High potential for interventions that would pair information on returns and trade exposure.

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Designing SP to Work under Existing Gender Norms: Small design tweaks can dramatically improve outcomes

Program context

• TVET program with multiple vocational tracks
• Strong occupational segregation by gender: Women concentrated in low-return trades

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Binding constraints

• Limited information on:
• Earnings by trade
• Employment prospects
• Default choices aligned with social expectations

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Design adaptation

• Simple, credible information on:
• Expected earnings
• Job prospects by trade
• Information provided before trade choice

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Useful resources

WHEN SP ENGAGES WITH NORMS DIRECTLY: EVIDENCE ON EFFECTIVENESS AND RISKS

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Engaging men and communities to improve women’s outcomes

• World Bank project: Great Lakes Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Women’s Health project
• Scalable adaptation of Indashyikirwa approved by board 2013, covered DRC, Rwanda, Burundi.
• First large-scale GBV-focused WB operation
• IPV response and prevention activities (couple’s training; activism component; safe spaces; key leaders training).

When SP engages with norms directly:

Backlash risks when norm engagement is perceived as threatening

Objectives:

Improving spousal communication & cooperation

Changing individual gender attitudes

Promoting norms of gender equality in the village – challenge power distribution

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Results:

Increase in IPV (even higher for spillover couples)

Mechanisms

• Threat to status or authority:
• Norm intervention framed as challenging male authority
• Perceived redistribution of power within the household
• Incentive misalignment:
• Household costs outweigh perceived benefits.
• Norm engagement not embedded in shared economic gains
• Lack of coordination channels:
• No tools for joint spouse planning or negotiation
• Increased divergence in beliefs, aspirations, and expectations within couples
• Social image and identity dynamics
• Diffusion of progressive gender attitudes beyond participating couples
• Heightened visibility 🡪 shaming, social sanctions, rumors
• Men respond to perceived identity or status loss through violence and identity-reaffirming behaviors (alcohol)
• Implementation features amplifying risks (Vs. Indashyikirwa):
• Larger groups sizes (19 couples/group)​
• Facilitators less trained and less supervised​
• Different components of program less well integrated with each other (integrated safe spaces, key leaders training)​

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When SP engages with norms directly:

Backlash risks when norm engagement is perceived as threatening

Promoting joint decision planning for improved economic outcomes�Côte d’Ivoire Agricultural Support program (PSAC)�

• GIL evaluated the impact of including wives in a training for male cash crop farmers:
• Short gender module + 3 days ag extension
• Action plan. Tools for shared planning over production and income use 
• Impact:
• Better economic outcomes: Farmers offered the couples' agricultural extension training planted 20% more rubber seedlings than farmers trained alone. 
• Improved spousal cooperation
• Increased women’s decision-making within productive domains
• Cost: Additional $31 per household 🡺 11 x return

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When SP engages with norms directly:

Improving outcomes through intra-household coordination

Light-touch intervention in the Mauritania Family Dialogue Program

• Cash-plus intervention embedded in Tekavoul, Mauritania’s national social transfer program (quarterly cash transfers to poor households (typically paid to mothers) alongside mandatory social promotion sessions.
• Couples-based dialogue training, delivered every ~3 weeks by trained male–female facilitator pairs, focused on:
1. Economic cooperation, budgeting, and planning,
2. Communication and sharing responsibilities,
3. (In extended versions) conflict management, emotional regulation, IPV, and gender roles
• Design principles: low-risk, scalable, and “do no harm”, avoiding early confrontation of gender hierarchies.
• Three program variants tested:

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When SP engages with norms directly:

Couples’ engagement: Mauritania Family Dialogue

• Improved communication & collaboration within couples receiving the cash-plus intervention
• Women’s voice increased in household discussions, without directly challenging men’s authority. Mental health improved. Control over her own earnings.
• Relationship quality improved, creating “openings for change” and reducing risks of conflict. Husband’s participation in housework.
• Limited short-term shifts in gender norms: attitudes around male privilege and responsibility for conflict resolution largely persisted
• Effects were incremental but meaningful, especially given delivery through a government system (→ large scale, use of government system, no backlash observed)

Mechanisms at Work:

• Intervention activated relational pathways linking social protection to reduced conflict:
• Stronger communication and trust
• Greater cooperation in decision-making
• Reduced likelihood of backlash from women’s increased participation
• The intervention mainly worked by reducing financial stress and improving how couples communicate and manage conflict, rather than by immediately changing gender power relations or deeply held norms.

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Key Findings for short training (RCT + qualitative evidence):

When SP engages with norms directly:

Couples’ engagement: Mauritania Family Dialogue

Community Support in Economic Inclusion Packages Niger Adaptive Social Protection (ASP)

• Comprehensive support packages significantly increased women’s earnings, especially in off-farm self-employment and livestock.
• Economic returns were highest and social norm changes significant when psychosocial and norm-focused components were included.
• Program costs: US$263–584 (2016 PPP).
• Household consumption gains exceeded costs within 18 months of completion

• Objective:
• Raise aspirations and build normative support for beneficiaries from the wider community (peers, husbands, and local leaders).
• Edutainment video:
• Realistic fiction filmed in Niger with non-professional actors for relatability and role modeling.
• Portrays a couple resolving conflict, setting shared goals, and growing income-generating activities with community support.
• Watch the Niger video (Zarma, short version)
• Facilitated discussion:
• Links the film to participants’ own lives, shared aspirations, and locally grounded norms.
• Identifies concrete ways households and communities can support women’s economic activities.
• Watch a sensitization session in Burkina Faso

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When SP engages with norms directly:

Community engagement: Niger ASP

Promoting more equitable norms and engaging men: A review of the evidence

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• Engaging men to support women’s individual activities, has shown mixed results, and can even reduce women’s autonomy
• Encouraging joint planning and cooperative management of household resources is more effective: empowers women and promotes equitable distribution of economic opportunities within the household.
• Promising evidence on engaging men to enhance women’s rights to ownership of important assets.
• more intensive interventions are not necessarily more successful than light-touch ones
• Ex: Uganda Sugarcane contracts

Challenging norms by engaging men and communities: evidence on effectiveness and what works

Useful resources

Challenging Norms Safely in SP�

Do

• Frame content around joint planning and family wellbeing, not power or rights.
• Sequence: start with communication → introduce sensitive topics later.
• Invest in formative research before finalizing content.
• Use mixed-gender facilitators with hands-on, practice-based training.
• Track participation and reactions in real time.

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Don’t

• Don’t confront authority or hierarchies upfront.
• Don’t assume “light-touch” means low implementation effort.
• Don’t scale before testing facilitation and supervision capacity.
• Don’t rely on attendance alone. Monitor how content is delivered.

1. Gender norms shape SP effectiveness.�They operate through take-up, engagement, and returns, conditioning whether women can translate program inputs into economic outcomes.

2. Many gender gaps can be closed without changing norms.�Low-cost, norm-aware design adaptations—addressing care, time, information, and psychosocial constraints—substantially improve participation and effectiveness at scale.

3. When norms are engaged directly, design is decisive.

• Collaboration-first approaches (joint planning, communication, coordination) improve outcomes and reduce risk.
• Frontal or highly visible norm challenges, especially when misaligned with incentives or coordination mechanisms, can trigger backlash and undermine impact.

4. Social protection systems can be safe entry points for norm change.�Embedding light-touch, “do no harm” norm engagement within SP platforms can improve women’s agency and wellbeing while improving program effectiveness.

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CONCLUSION: Designing Social Protection with Gender Norms in Mind

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Thank you!

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For more, contact us at afrgenderlab@worldbank.org

cdelavallade@worldbank.org

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