Influencing social norms training

Terms of References

Influencing Social Norms Training

Background

Oxfam has been working in Lebanon since 1993 providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people affected by conflict, and promoting economic development, good governance at a local and national level, and women’s rights through Oxfam’s work with partners. Oxfam also works with local partners to contribute to the protection and empowerment of marginalized women and men.

Oxfam in Lebanon is currently implementing the “Masarouna” project that mobilizes the power of young people so they can claim their sexual and reproductive health and rights. This is a youth-centred project and forge new pathways through lobbying, advocating, and strengthening civil society.

Purpose and objectives

Oxfam in Lebanon is planning to provide capacity strengthening for CSOs and informal groups to enhance their capacities to influencing social norms effectively as part of their efforts to drive social change.

More particularly the training aims to:

• Strengthen the CSOs understanding of social and how social norms influence health and SRH behaviours
• Build participants skills to design, implement, and evaluate interventions that challenge social norms - more particularly advocacy projects.
• Provide practical tools and frameworks for influencing behaviours and contributing to social change.

Scope of work

Oxfam is looking to hire a consultant/consultancy firm to deliver Influencing social norms to a total of 40 CSOs and grassroot organizations in Beirut and Bekaa.  

The main key responsibilities of the consultant/consultancy firm are:

1. Develop comprehensive training modules that are relevant to the Lebanese context
2. Create training materials to be shared with participants including presentations and handouts, etc. in English and Arabic.
3. Facilitate interactive training sessions to ensure that participants gain the needed knowledge and skills to assess social norms and implement advocacy and social norms shifting interventions. The training needs to include practical examples and exercises.
4. Conduct pre and post assessments and training evaluation to measure the impact of the training.
5. Provide a final training report summarizing the training outcomes, challenges, and recommendations.

The topics of the curriculum to be developed should include (but are not limited to) the following:

1. Introduction to concepts: definition of social norms, moral norms, custom, types of norms (descriptive and injunctive norms), reference groups, Normative expectations and personal normative beliefs, pluralistic ignorance, social sanctions, behaviour change vs Norms change, Interdependent and independent actions and empirical expectations, behaviour, scripts, and schemas, positive deviance.
2. Introduction to the socio-ecological model and behaviour drivers model
3. Social norms assessment: tools, identification of reference groups and norms influencers, understanding drivers of change and resistance (5 Why, vignette, problem tree analysis, etc.) and social network analysis.
4. Norms shifting approaches (community mobilization, SBCC, social movement, social listening, edutainment, etc)
5. Using storytelling, media, and advocacy to shift social norms
6. Designing norm-change intervention: integrating social norms theory into program design, developing objectives, aligning interventions with cultural and contextual realities
7. Monitoring and evaluation to sustain change: methods for monitoring and evaluation of social norm change, indicators, and tools for measuring shifts in social norms.
8. Strategies for sustaining change at individual, community, and systemic levels

The training will be provided in 3 workshops of 4 full days each: 1 workshop in Beirut and 1 workshop in Bekaa and 1 workshop in North. The training is planned to be delivered in-person with possibility for hybrid modality depending on participants’ needs.

The trainer needs to provide the material in both languages English and Arabic.

Oxfam in Lebanon will provide interpretation to participants when needed.

The trainer needs to be able to provide the training on weekends if needed.

Notes: the participants have different capacities and knowledge related to the topic. The trainer should be able to facilitate hybrid workshops for 30 attendees from different backgrounds (migrants, youth, CSOs staff, refugees, etc.).

Timeline

The total number of working days allocated for this consultancy is set at 20 days starting on 16 June 2025, and running until 25 July 2025.

Activity

Timeline

1. Submit a comprehensive capacity building program (training material, handouts, pre and post-test, evaluation form, etc) for review

20 June 2025

2. Oxfam review and sign-off on curriculum

25 June 2025

3. Conduct 3 trainings (each of 4 days)

19 July 2025

4. Submit a final report

25 July 2025

Expected Outputs

The main expected outputs are:

• Detailed training curriculum and schedule
• Training materials
• Training delivery
• Pre and post assessment and evaluation survey
• Final report

Qualifications of the consultants/consultancy firm

• A Masters’ Degree (or equivalent degree/experience) in Social Sciences, Social psychology, or relevant field.
• Extensive experience in advocacy and social and behaviour change intervention in the Lebanese context.
• Familiarity with CSOs work in Lebanon.
• Demonstrated cultural sensitivity and ability to work with people from different backgrounds (refugees, migrants, youth, etc.)
• Excellent knowledge of the Lebanese context.
• Proven experience in developing manuals and training materials.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver high-quality written reports.
• Experience in using participatory workshop facilitation methodologies.
• Excellent communications skills (written and oral) in English and Arabic.

Management of the assignment

The tasks and deliverables of the consultant will be coordinated with Masarouna’s project team at Oxfam in Lebanon. Oxfam team will review and provide feedback to training materials and reports, book venues for trainings sessions, hire interpreters if needed, and coordinate with the participants.

Expression of Interest (EOI)

Interested consultant(s)/consulting firms should submit their:

• CVs of consultants and/or role of each consultant recruited under the scope of this assignment for firms;
• A cover letter detailing the interest in the assignment and relevant experience;
• Narrative proposal including the timeline of delivery, pedagogical methods of training delivery, suggested training tools, primary outline for the curriculum;
• Financial proposal detailing the consultancy fees as well as all the costs associated with this assignment per item;
• A sample of relevant previous training material (mandatory requirement);
• Minimum of three references of similar activities implemented, preferably INGO or local NGO experiences;
• Registration and official government documents, if applicable. Noting that 8.5% will be deducted from the total amount if not registered.

Oxfam in Lebanon reserves the right to reject any and all bids, including the Bidding processes, or not to award the contract at any time, without thereby incurring and liability to the affected Bidders.

Please submit the full application documents (as mentioned above) to lebanonprocurement@oxfam.org.uk by 12 June 2025 midnight mentioning “Influencing social norms training” in the subject line.