The Communications Plan for Engaging Men and Boys to End VAWG In Central Asia provides recommendations on how to develop effective communications strategies and activities engaging men and boys in preventing VAWG. The Communications Plan is based on promising advocacy and campaign practices for engaging men and boys in gender equality, as well as findings from the UNFPA Situational Analysis of Men and Gender Equality in Central Asia. This Communications Plan is for civil society and public organizations, development actors, activists, members of state institutions who address gender equality and gender-based violence as part of their mandate (such as Ministries of Social Development, for example), and UN agencies. 

Evidence from the UNFPA Situational Analysis of Men and Gender Equality in the Central Asia Region shows that, at the institutional level, more work needs to be done to demonstrate how men’s engagement can help governments and other institutions achieve the goals set out in their national action plans and policies, while at the community, relationship, and individual levels, evidence shows that men’s and women’s attitudes, perceptions, and practices, though changing, are often gender-inequitable and can prevent the achievement of true gender equality. Therefore, this communications plan has three overarching goals: 1. To challenge harmful gender norms and promote more positive messaging supporting gender-equitable manhood and boyhood. 2. To shift public perceptions in ways that make it clear that men and boys have an important role in ending violence against women and girls (VAWG). 3. To make visible how stereotypical portrayals of manhood also harm men and boys.