Despite significant global investment and efforts to create a more equitable and safer world for children, some challenges such as female genital mutilation are so deeply rooted in the long-standing beliefs and social norms of communities that they continue to persist.

This toolkit is a practical ‘how to’ document for researchers, programme planners, programme implementers and evaluation experts, and is intended to enhance their social-norms-related programme efforts.

This technical brief presents an analysis of the main risk factors that must be urgently addressed to ensure the needs of the Afro-descendant population are taken into account as part of the measures implemented in the region to reduce the impacts of COVID-19 in all spheres.