Girl EffectOur approach to unlocking change

Our approach to unlocking change

Girl Effect’s mission is to create a New Normal for girls. In doing this, we want to actively contribute to girls’ empowerment, a new reality in which girls are more educated, healthy, safe and economically empowered. Built with authentic insights into the lives of girls within their own cultures, Girl Effect’s global and local brands inspire, inform and connect girls to help them overcome the often intangible but very real individual and social barriers that are holding them back. Our Theory of Change forms the bedrock of this approach, and of Girl Effect’s activities all over the world. This document explains how it works.

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Shaping a New Normal

A New Normal for girls occurs

when behaviour and social change

take place at a significant scale,

creating conditions that help girls

to have agency and consequently

become empowered.

“Empowerment” means that girls

have agency — the ability to make

decisions about their own lives

and to act on them — and that the

environment around them

allows them to exercise it.

In turn, this enables girls to be

educated, healthy, safe, and

economically empowered.

For girls to become empowered,

change must occur. This change

takes place on several layers and is

driven by many influences at once.

It’s not a neat and linear process;

in fact, it’s quite a messy one. Our

Theory of Change diagram helps

us to understand this complex

process of change.

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At the heart of the Theory of

Change is the girl. She is the

focus of Girl Effect’s activities, so

everything starts with her. The girl

is at the centre of her own world,

and her life — so she is also at the

centre of our diagram.

Immediately surrounding the girl

are individual factors, the issues

that are intrinsic to her unique

experience of life. This includes her

beliefs, her attitudes, her level of

knowledge and her particular traits

and behaviours.

These individual factors all have

an influence on the girl’s life.

For example, to stay healthy, it’s

important that she visits a health

clinic when she needs to. But

the girl may not know why it is

important to take care of her health.

Even if she has this understanding,

she may lack the confidence to talk

to a doctor — or even to go to the

clinic in the first place.

Beyond these individual concerns,

there are also social factors that

surround the girl in a wider context.

These stem from how the girl

relates to her peers, to boys, her

family and the wider community.

The knowledge, attitudes, beliefs

and behaviours of these people all

have an impact upon the girl’s life,

and how she lives it.

The girl and her world

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To return to the previous example,

social issues might prevent the

girl from attending a health clinic,

even if individual factors aren’t a

problem. Within her community,

there may be a belief that only

“bad girls” need to go to clinics;

if she tries to visit one she may

be shunned, or boys might make

fun of her for it. Alternatively,

her parents may forbid her from

going to the clinic, or if they lack

the required resources, they may

prioritise the health care

of another family member.

Finally, in the wider context,

there are environmental factors

that affect the girl (and all the

people she knows). These include

the political and economic

landscape of the country she lives

in — factors that might, for our

example, make it too dangerous

for the girl to attend a clinic, or

might mean that there isn’t even

a clinic to attend.

While Girl Effect focuses on

individual and social factors, we

partner with other organisations

that directly address these

environmental problems. In our

diagram, environmental factors are

represented by the blue dotted line

circle that surrounds all the other

elements. While these dynamics

are not part of Girl Effect’s

direct remit, they are part of the

landscape in which we operate

and they are a key element for

girls’ empowerment.

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Once you understand that there

are individual and social factors

that affect the girl’s life, it’s

easier to see how a change can

take place — the change that

contributes to girls becoming

empowered.

Girl Effect builds progress toward

this change by using four pathways

to empowerment, strands of

activity that target the individual

and social factors influencing the

girl’s life. The four pathways are:

Overcoming knowledge gaps

Shifting attitudes

Encouraging new behaviours

Evolving social norms

Taken as a whole, these four

elements are what Girl Effect

means when it refers to

“behaviour and social change”.

Like the overall process of change,

these pathways to empowerment

don’t follow a linear process.

Instead, they are dynamic

activities that evolve and

intertwine with each other.

In the diagram, the pathways to

empowerment are represented

by colourful, energised loops that

mesh and intersect around the

girl, and the individual and social

factors that impact her life.

Pathways to empowerment

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1. Thematic issues

These relate to the critical assets

and services the girl needs. They

can be summarised as:

Health

Safety

Education

Economic empowerment

Girl Effect’s work is always shaped

and informed by the culture of the

country in which it takes place, and

its unique concerns. Over the course

of 12 years of listening and learning

from girls and their community, we

have identified several key issues

— common opportunities for

unlocking positive change.

These key issues feed into the

pathways to empowerment,

informing the strategy and

approach taken. They can be

broadly separated into two groups:

Key issues: thematic and cross-cutting

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2. Cross-cutting issues

These are complex, multifaceted

issues that arise in numerous

aspects of the girl’s life, at the

individual and social level. They

include: the girl’s ability to freely

express herself; her self-worth

and the worth assigned to her by

others; and the relationships she

has with people around her.

They can be summarised as:

Voice

Value

Connections

These three issues

collectively underpin the girl’s

ability to have agency — an

essential consideration for

unlocking lasting change.

In the diagram, both sets of

key issues are represented

by arrows that feed into the

other elements.

Key issues: thematic and cross-cutting

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Girl Effect seeks to address key

issues (thematic and cross-cutting

issues) as they arise in girls’ lives

at an individual and social level.

To do this, we leverage pathways

to empowerment: overcoming

knowledge gaps; shifting attitudes;

encouraging new behaviours; and

evolving social norms.

At the same time, Girl Effect

partners with organisations that

address environmental factors

— for example, by improving

infrastructure, making quality

services available and changing

policies. Meanwhile, Girl Effect

strives to remove the individual

and social barriers that might

prevent the girl from using services,

accessing resources and finally

being empowered.

Using media, mobile technology,

deep insight and data, Girl Effect

works swiftly, at mass scale, and

by generating high engagement,

with the aim of driving change.

This ultimately creates a new

reality where girls are

empowered: healthier,

safer, better educated,

and economically

empowered.

How Girl Effect works

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Appendices

1. Girl Effect’s approach to unlocking change: A glossary

2. Evidence and evaluation

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1. Girl Effect uses brands and digital products to

improve the lives of adolescent girls around the

world by driving Behaviour and Social Change.

Many organisations do really important work to

improve the environment for girls — for example,

through service delivery like building schools

or health clinics, advocating for girls’ rights, or

developing infrastructure. However, there is a key

missing ingredient to achieving change at scale

— tackling the root causes of why girls have a

disadvantaged position in society. This is where

Girl Effect comes in.

2. What is a Theory of Change and how can you

interpret it? Our Theory of Change shows what

changes need to happen for girls, and the world

that surrounds them, in order for them to become

empowered. The Theory of Change is a high-level

roadmap of what we need to do to reach behaviour

and social change at scale. By working together

with key partners and stakeholders, our ambition is

to achieve a New Normal for girls around the globe.

3. What is a New Normal for girls? A New Normal is

what Girl Effect confidently feels we can achieve

with our work. A New Normal is when girls have

agency, and when behaviours and social norms

around them are shifting at scale, further enabling

them to exercise their agency. The degree to which

a girl is able to exercise agency depends on the

context and issue she is facing. The more behaviour

and social change is happening around her and

supporting her, the more situations she can exercise

her agency on.

4. What is a new reality for girls? This is our

ambition: the long-term impact we want to

contribute to, working together with other actors.

Girls’ empowerment means that girls are healthy,

educated, economically empowered and safe.

We are conscious this can only be achieved if

a number of other factors are in place — things

like infrastructure, services and policies, over

which Girl Effect has no direct control and only

limited influence.

1Behaviour and social change refers to the multiple levels of change that need to happen to shape a New Normal for girls. This term was chosen based on UNICEF definitions of Behaviour change and Social change (https://www.unicef.org/cbsc/index_65736.html): Behaviour change is a research-based consultative process for addressing knowledge, attitudes and practices. Behaviour change strategies focus on the individual as a locus of change. Social change, on the other hand, focuses on the community as the unit of change. It is a process of transforming the distribution of power within social and political institutions. For behaviours to change, certain harmful cultural practices, societal norms and structural inequalities have to be considered and addressed.

Girl Effect’s approach to unlocking change: A glossary

5. How does change happen? In order to achieve

a New Normal for girls, and ultimately girls’

empowerment, Girl Effect works at multiple levels.

All our activities put girls at the centre and aim to

influence change at the individual level. We also

work with people around girls, like boys, families,

communities. We call this the social level. Finally,

there is an environmental level that is key to

achieving girls’ empowerment, but we acknowledge

that we can only have a limited influence on these

environmental factors. We recognise that behaviour

and social change happen in a non-linear fashion

and that there is not necessarily a set path for how

change occurs. However, when all of the different

levels of change are occurring together, they

reinforce each other and result in sustainable

and significant change.

6. Agency: this is the capacity to make decisions

about one’s own life and act on them independently

to achieve a desired outcome, free of violence,

retribution or fear (WB 2016).

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7. Cross-cutting issues: value, voice and connections

are the three key elements that contribute to girls’

agency and lead to shifts in social norms around

girls. We identified them as the key things

Girl Effect can influence through our media and

digital products. We believe these three cross-

cutting issues are essential to reach a New Normal.

8. Thematic issues: health, education, safety

and economic empowerment are key areas

in girls’ lives and therefore the building blocks of

girls’ empowerment. It is within these areas that

Girl Effect would like to see changes in terms of

value, voice and connections for girls.

9. Ways to bring about change: the ways in which

we believe we can bring about behaviour and

social change is through increasing knowledge,

shifting attitudes and behaviours, and promoting

gender equitable social norms at both the

individual and social level. These changes will

directly relate to and aim at improving girls’

values, voice, and connections.

10. Evidence: to measure our progress towards

a New Normal and our contribution to girls’

empowerment, we measure whether there have

been shifts in knowledge, new attitudes, new

behaviours among our target audiences, and

how these translate into shifts in social norms

in relation to girls’ value, voice and connections.

Specifically, we look at these changes in relation

to concrete issues affecting girls (cross-cutting as

well as thematic issues) because a girl’s voice in

education can be different to her voice on health

issues; in the same way, social norms around girls

attending school could be different from the norms

around girls accessing health services. We will then

be able to say that a girl has agency when there

have been significant changes across value,

voice and connections.

These changes can be specific to a thematic

issue and measured only in relation to it, or

across the board.

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1. Key individual and social factors

2. Evidence: Cross-cutting issues

In each geography, standardised measures are used to assess the effect of interventions on Voice,

Value and Connections. Example measures are:

Knowledge(of girls, boys

and adults)

Voice

Behaviours(of girls, boys

and adults)

Connections

Attitudes(of girls, boys

and adults)

Value

(Gender) Norms

Definition

Factors

Facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education.

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

The way in which an individual acts or conducts his/herself.

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

The way in which an individual positively or negatively thinks or feels about something.

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

Informal rules and shared social expectations of behaviour (on the basis of gender).

Example

Example indicators

At school a girl learns that taking care of her health is important for her wellbeing.

In the last six months, have you spoken to anyone about things that concern you?

The girl regularly goes to the clinic for checkups.

How much do you agree with the statement “My friends really try to help me”?

The girl sees positively the health services that doctors offer.

How much do you agree with the statement “On average, girls are as smart as boys”?

It is considered normal and acceptable for adolescent girls to have regular

checkups at the clinic.

To demonstrate the effect of our work on girls and their

communities, Girl Effect has developed an evidence

strategy that sets out how to evaluate change for both

cross-cutting and thematic issues.

This includes using quantitative and qualitative

methods to measure the extent to which we are

unlocking change for girls, as well as examining how

the work breaks down individual and social barriers

and contributes to girls’ empowerment.

While success is always dependent on a country’s

context, each evidence story is comparable across

the geographies where Girl Effect works.

Evidence and evaluation

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3. Evidence: Related to specific issues

Additionally, Girl Effect uses measures that encompass the specific issues of

Health, Education, Safety and Economic Empowerment within the cross-cutting

issues of Voice, Value and Connections. Example measures are:

4. Evidence: Specific issues working with partner organisations

Girl Effect works with partner organisations who measure specific

issues. As an example, with GAVI as a partner this includes

measuring the uptake of vaccines, increases in health-seeking

behaviours more broadly, and determining the degree to which

health-seeking behaviours are a consequence of girls having

increased voice, value and connections. Example measures are:Health Education Safety

Economic Empowerment

Value

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

“Girls who get found out

accessing sexual and reproductive

services will get a bad

reputation.” Do you agree?

“If there is a limited amount of money to pay for education,

it should be spent on sons

first.” Do you agree?

“There are times when a girl deserves

to be beaten.” Do you agree?

“Girls should be more concerned with becoming

good wives and mothers

than desiring a professional or

business career.” Do you agree?

Voice

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

In the last six months have you spoken to anyone about changes to

your body?

In the last six months have

you spoken to anyone about

your education?

In the last six months have you spoken to anyone about things that

worry you?

In the last six months have you spoken to anyone about your future

career?

Connections

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

“I have people who help me access health

services if I need them.”

Do you agree?

“I have people who help me

achieve at school.”

Do you agree?

“I have people who will help

me if I experience violence.”

Do you agree?

“I have people who help me

plan my future career.”

Do you agree?

FactorsExample indicators

Factors

KnowledgeAttitudes

BehavioursNorms

Example indicators

Have you had the HPV vaccine?

Have you ever accessed sexual reproductive

health services from a hospital or clinic?

Do you feel you have control over decisions about your health?