In marketing, the first question you ask is, who is my competitor and what is my position, but as Neela explains, “in development we don’t think we have competitors, we think of our end-users as beneficiaries,” assuming that they are benefitting from what we offer them. “But there are always competitors…and if we tend to think of them as customers for our services, rather than beneficiaries, we’d start to think about, what is competing for their time, and attention and limited resources and how can we beat that competition”? We cannot expect people to simply find a service attractive because it is free, and instead need to ask, who are we competing against?
Learning from a ‘double agent’: Behavioural Science across scales and sectors Part 1
Neela considers herself a ‘double agent’ having worked in both India and the US. For her, double agents are key in activating BI across the global South. “It’s our responsibility to sort of advance the field, not by parachuting in and doing the work and leaving, but really thinking through how we can build local capacity quickly enough”.
How understanding behaviour leads to innovation: In conversation with the Nudge Lebanon Team
Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, Nudge Lebanon expected families “to have difficulties putting their kids in school”, pressure to be placed on healthcare centres, and for basic needs to be scarce. In times of crisis or unrest, it’s up to us to look for ways that BI can ease the burden. With creative thinking, we can find ways to move forward.
Harnessing behavioural insights in developing countries: In conversation with James Drummond
Are there certain conditions for success when applying BI in government? This is what James and his colleagues in the OECD Public Governance Directorate spend their time exploring through three broad streams of work: providing tools and standards on how to approach BI; supporting governments in carrying out experiments; and fostering a global community of BI practitioners and policy makers.
People, partners, and behavioural insights: In Conversation with Ammaarah Martinus
At this stage in our interview series, we’ve touched on a lot of the common problems facing BI practitioners in the Global South, like tight budgets and underdeveloped communication channels. There is, however, one more big challenge we've yet to dive into: the problem with people. The complexities of human relationships, cultural codes, and social contexts mean that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Nevertheless, we can look at how others in the BI space have dealt with similar problems – at least as a starting point.
Overcoming challenges in developing countries: In conversation with Dr Umar Taj
Despite the fact that most developing countries have challenging settings, the specific challenges they each pose vary significantly - which makes sense considering the sheer social, economic, political, and religious diversity of countries broadly categorised as 'developing'. Furthermore, the catalogue of issues being faced in these settings varies widely: from corruption to poverty, war to safety, healthcare to education.
Behavioural lessons from around the world: In conversation with Monica Wills Silva
The power in understanding your tools and contexts
The developing world can seem daunting from the outside, but if you look deeper, you realise the abundance of opportunity. Faisal proposes if you apply this same level of curiosity and detail-orientation to the way you go about applying BI and generate a deep understanding of what you’re working with, you will be a lot more successful in driving behaviour change.
Changing the direction of the diffusion of innovation: Global South to the North
Innovation can be witnessed from those that are pursuing BI in the Global South despite resource scarcity and external environment constraints such as poor transport infrastructure. Indeed, these constraints trigger the Global South to move more quickly, efficiently, and creatively: the more limited you are, the more innovative you have to be. This gives cause for Dilip to rightfully point out that if, with all its internal and external environment constraints, the Global South is still able to innovate, there is tremendous potential for application of its lessons in the Global North.
Setting a new gold standard in behavioural insights (BI) in the Global South
Since its inception, the BI community in the Global North turned to scientific rigour and evidence to justify its value in response to the climate of deep scepticism towards the field. Albeit a hard armour, this uniformity across the tools, methodologies, and areas of focus in the field resulted in the emergence of what Dilip refers to as a ‘BI box’ of standard practices.