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Social Analysis and Action (SAA)

A woman wearing yellow walks around a room barefoot and speaks to a group of women.

CARE / Jorja Currington

CARE / Jorja Currington

Strengthening Healthcare

CARE’s signature approach to re-envisioning social norms is Social Analysis and Action (SAA), a facilitated process through which individuals explore and challenge norms, beliefs, and practices that shape their lives and health.

Re-envisioning Social Norms

CARE is committed to advancing equality for women and girls. To that end, we partner with communities to challenge and re-envision unequal social norms that restrict women’s and girls’ ability to achieve their best possible health and lives. CARE’s signature approach to re-envisioning social norms is Social Analysis and Action (SAA).

SAA is a facilitated process through which individuals explore and challenge the social norms, beliefs, and practices that shape their lives and health. The goal of SAA is to help participants to surface and challenge restrictive norms and act together to create more equal ones, while building support for reproductive and maternal health and rights. Unique and central to SAA is that the process of critical reflection and dialogue begins with CARE staff, encouraging them to reflect on their own beliefs and how they affect their work, and to make them more comfortable discussing sensitive issues with others.

A woman stands in front of a large group of youth. She is holding up cards while they listen.
A discussion about using SAA around task and decision making with youth groups. CARE / Timor-Leste

Key impacts

  • The SantéNet2 program in Madagascar conducted SAA with members of community health committees. Staff reported that committees in areas that participated in SAA demonstrated greater leadership and were more effective than committees in communes where SAA was not practiced.
  • In Benin, women and men involved in CARE’s Tékponon Jikuagou project were two-and-a-half times more likely to discuss family planning with their partner or spouse and more than twice as likely to visit a health center to obtain a contraceptive method after participating in SAA dialogues.

Social Analysis and Action in the context of Food and Nutrition Security (SAA-FNS)

SAA-FNS addresses the social, economic, and cultural factors that influence agriculture practices, livelihoods, climate resilience, nutritional health, inequality, and development. SAA-FNS is a community-based approach that facilitates dialogue, enabling critical thinking and reflection about how social conditions perpetuate food and nutrition insecurity and development challenges.  

SAA-FNS engages communities, CARE partners, and CARE staff in recurring critical reflection and dialogue to catalyze social change by building awareness of the links between social norms, equality for women and girls, power dynamics, and food and nutrition security program impacts. SAA-FNS is designed as an integrative approach that enhances existing project activities and catalyzes community action planning, collective actions, and the work of CARE and CARE staff. The goal of SAA-FNS is to facilitate a community-led social change process through which participants act together to create more equal social norms and address development challenges. 

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