Incorporating Male Gender Norms into Family Planning and Reproductive Health Programs: Program Guidance Brief

This program guidance brief provides evidence-based recommendations to guide family planning programmers in the design, implementation, and evaluation of family planning programs that have a male gender norms component. The recommendations build on the 2007 WHO report Engaging men and boys in changing gender-based inequity in health: Evidence from programme interventions and draws from discussions at the C-Change Experts' Meeting on Male Involvement and Male Gender Norms, held in Spring 2009 and funded by USAID. Male gender norms--socially constructed expectations about how men and boys should behave--influence a range of family planning and reproductive heath behaviors. Promoting dialogue among sexual partners and within communities, ensuring space and time for men and boys to do critical reflection, and carrying out a gender analysis are among the recommendations.