Research proposal “BAD NORMS – Changing Harmful Social Norms in Developing Countries” by La Ferrara E. receives funding by MIUR

Social norms are a crucial part of life in developing countries. They serve a fundamental economic role in compensating for market failures but they can also be a serious impediment to economic progress. Effective development policy cannot abstract from the constraints posed by “bad social norms”.

The project focuses the extremely harmful norm of female genital cutting (FGC) and aims at answering at the following questions: Why does FGC persist? Can we design effective policy interventions to reduce its incidence?

FGC is the practice of removing part of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons and is present in 29 African and Middle Eastern countries. There is consensus that FGC is a harmful practice and a violation of women's physical integrity with dramatic consequences for their health and general wellbeing. Despite this, policies capable of eradicating it are extremely hard to identify and almost no rigorous evidence exists on their effectiveness.

This project will design and evaluate interventions aimed at (i) changing perceptions beliefs and attitudes towards FGC; and (ii) reducing the incidence of this practice. The proposed research is organized in two workpackages. The first builds on the theory of coordination failures as explanations for why harmful social norms may persist. It involves designing and testing an intervention in Somalia that aims to change individuals' expectations about their community's attitudes towards FGC. We will collaborate with the NGO “Save the Children” to conduct a randomized control trial (RCT) in which we elicit truthful revelation of individual attitudes through an anonymous poll and then announce the share of people in favour and against FGC to other community members. The second workpackage focuses on information provision regarding the consequences of FGC and on material incentives and will be implemented in Burkina Faso by another NGO.