High-Impact Practices: How to Design Social and Behavior Change Communications for Countering Violent Extremism

This document is a primer on the limited existing data on the application of social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) interventions and countering violent extremism (CVE). It provides insight on how to design SBCC to address violent extremism based on CVE-related data and data from other disciplines (e.g., health, education, neuroscience, and youth programming).

SBCC is defined here as "a research-based, consultative, participatory process that uses communication to facilitate behavior change and to support the social change required to improve specific outcomes, like CVE. An ecological theory that integrates changes at the individual level with changes at the group, environmental, and structural levels guides this participatory process." SBCC draws heavily on neurocognitive and psychological drivers of human behaviour. So grounded, in the context of CVE, SBCC consists of 3 key elements:

1. Communication that goes beyond mass media, using channels, messages, materials, interventions, and themes that fit the intended population's needs and preferences;
2. Behaviour change through efforts to make specific actions easier, feasible, and closer to an ideal that will prevent or counter violent extremism; and
3. Social change to achieve shifts in the definition of violent extremism: people's participation and engagement, policies, and gender norms and relations.

In recent years, SBCC played an increasing role in CVE programmes; the primer provides several examples of what SBCC for CVE can look like, and what we know at this point about what works. Possibilities include:

• Counter-messages, which are often but not only delivered through mass communications campaigns. They may directly refute or deconstruct violent extremist claims through:
  • Direct in-person or online discussions with potential recruits or current violent extremist group members to discuss specific violent extremist messages and offer direct counterpoints.
  • Counter-imaging, which involves de-romanticising extremism by using images of what actually happens on the ground (e.g., the killing of civilians, women, and children).
  • Redirecting viewers searching for jihadist material to different messages through online advertising that "nudges" those viewers to pursue, for example, credible content in English and Arabic on YouTube related to citizen testimonies and on-the-ground reports.
• Counter-narratives, which are strategically constructed storylines created through activities and communications designed to change the stories extremist groups use. Conveyed either through mass media or in person, counter-narrarives include:
  • Messages that focus on positive stories about social values, tolerance, openness, freedom, and democracy.
  • Communications and activities that aim to illustrate an alternative reality to that proposed by the extremists.
  • Government strategic communications that undercut extremist narratives by explaining government policy and rationale and offer a different story of government activity and intentions.
• Interpersonal communications (IPC), like one-on-one meetings, small group meetings, and small-group skills building programmes. IPC can: provide an intimate platform for individuals to discuss their concerns and perspectives and to address the norms and barriers often linked to violent extremism; help reaffirm narrative-based campaign content; and create opportunities to engage gatekeepers or influencers populations to lead these sessions and to further reaffirm messages against radicalisation.
• Community mobilisation, like community events, theatre groups, school programmes, and religious-based programmes. Like IPCs, these types of SBCC can also address factors that entice people to violent extremism.

Although limited data exist on the actual application of SBCC interventions in conflict-affected environments, the primer provides several case studies, focused on, in brief:

• Strengthening Community Resilience against Extremism (SCORE), which is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Kenya and USAID/East Africa capacity-building activity that combines messaging through various channels, community-based activities, and government and security participation. SCORE's results demonstrate the importance of relying on formative research to identify the characteristics of a given region or community and of partnering with influential community-level actors to engage with vulnerable groups.
• Rapid information for design: SBCC during the Ebola epidemic, which involved the USAID-funded Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) working with the Liberian Ministry of Health and international and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to design and implement a multi-method, rapid, and local approach that could be applied to the localised and evolving threat of violent extremism.
• An 8-week redirect method pilot, launched in 2015 by Jigsaw in partnership with Moonshot CVE and Quantum Communications, to: identify the major narratives ISIS uses to draw in individuals, compile YouTube content that alters or counters those narratives, and launch a series of text, image, and video advertisements to redirect users. Although not an SBCC intervention given its focus on messaging alone rather than the integration of changes at the individual, environmental, and structural levels, the pilot illustrates how to gather counter-messaging content.

Next, the primer describes key themes and best practices related to the use of SBCC for CVE. In brief:

• Conduct strong formative research to guide programme design, planning, and adaptation.
• Consider designing SBCC efforts around Equal Access' 4 drivers that attract individuals to violent extremist groups: (i) critical significance (individuals' need to feel they play a crucial role in their family, community, region, or country is a major factor leading to radicalisation); (ii) grievances; (iii) identity threat; and (iv) social inclusion.
• Pay attention to social workers in addition to other influencers and gatekeepers - e.g., by supporting them in training parents on having appropriate conversations with their children or family members if they appear to be at risk of being recruited to violent extremist groups.
• Pair communications with concurrent activities to address the enabling environment.
• Make communications and other activities as participatory as possible in order to spur discussion and engagement, empower individuals and groups, strengthen leadership and advocacy skills, identify salient problems and solutions, and promote alternatives to norms and practices that propagate violent extremism.

Designing and implementing SBCC initiatives is complex, so the primer suggests use of a step-by-step roadmap, like the P Process (see Exhibit 1) to guide the development of a strategic and participatory programme that is grounded in theory. The P Process has 5 fundamental steps and 3 crosscutting concepts; they are outlined in detail in the primer. In brief:

• Step 1: Inquire (Exhibit 2 depicts formative research phases and methods.)
• Step 2: Design the Strategy (Exhibit 3 provides an illustrative framework for intervention design.)
• Step 3: Create and test
• Step 4: Mobilise and monitor
• Step 5: Evaluate and evolve (Includes a look at methodologies and approaches, as well as a section on planning for common issues in SBCC and CVE evaluation.)
• [Publish results: "The body of knowledge of what works in terms of applying SBCC for CVE remains sparse, partly because data on existing or recent interventions does not appear to be publicly available for other practitioners....By learning rapidly from each other, we may find the means to slow this growing threat."]

The primer concludes with links to additional resources that provide more detail on each step and that may help those seeking guidance on designing and implementing SBCC and CVE programmes.