With a Master's degree in Decision Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a PhD in Behavioural Science from Warwick Business School (WBS), Umar Taj shares his knowledge and experience as an Associate Professor at WBS, an Executive Teaching Fellow at LSE, as well as a behaviour change consultant at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In the field, he established the Behavioural Insights Unit in Gallup, Pakistan, and is the founder of both Nudgeathon and Behaviour Insight. Umar's interest lies in helping public and private institutions apply the latest insights from behavioural science to improve decision making. We spoke to Umar about his views on the challenges of applying behavioural insights in the Global South, and how to overcome them.
Welcome to the developing world
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.
Needless to say, applying behavioural insights (BI) in these contexts, primarily located within the Global South, is not all smooth sailing. In this article, we delve into the nuanced challenges that Umar has come up against in his experience in the Global South.
Challenge 1: Data Collection
Having grown accustomed to the ease and efficiency of systems that exist in the confines of a UK-based lab, the first challenge Umar outlined was the practicality of doing things in developing countries, with a focus on the recurrent problem of data management. Umar shared with us that the systems for data collection often don’t yet exist in developing countries and, with no one taking responsibility for the issue, BI practitioners may become responsible for building these, too.
When it comes to the mode of data collection – including online platforms, tablets or pen and paper – he found that data procedures varied significantly. “It means often there will be fieldwork with interviewers involved who will serve as your proxy.” The lack of both the digital infrastructure and efficient modes of collection makes even getting a project off the ground an arduous task.
Challenge 2: Managing Fieldwork
Fieldwork brings its own set of obstacles regarding the interviewer and their methodology. Umar questions: what tools are the interviewers using, and how are they using them? The advent of tablets in place of pen and paper has helped to reduce some of these concerns while allowing for easy randomisation. However, maintaining scientific rigour during experimentation completely hinges on the interviewers’ familiarity with the methods used in Behavioural Science, for example, knowledge of study protocols. Umar summarises: “The challenge is to make sure the interviewers understand.”
Managing interviewers in the field can also pose several logistical challenges, from transportation to means of incentivisation. “If I’m going to pay cash, a lot of things need to happen. Who is holding the cash? Are the interviewers holding the cash? How will we make sure that the participants got the money they were supposed to get?” In the UK, Umar's experiments are carried out in a lab following an established system, while in the developing world, establishment of standard protocols in the BI field are just getting started.
Challenge 3: Cultural Context
To help us appreciate this next challenge, Umar recounted a project he worked on in Karachi, Pakistan. Run in collaboration with the World Bank’s Mind, Behavior, and Development Unit (eMBeD), the plan was to measure the effect of urban space improvement on social cohesion– albeit an uncommon pairing. Umar explained, "It was an infrastructure project with the hypothesis that if you improve these public spaces, you will provide more opportunities for people from diverse or ethnic backgrounds to come together in one place and get exposed to diversity, and more exposure to diversity will increase social cohesion". The lab-in-the-field centres were set up and a sample of 2000 youth was administered a Virtual Reality (VR) video. Subjects were split into a control group and the following three intervention groups:
Treatment 1 - exposure to improved parks
Treatment 2 - exposure to diversity (diverse ethnic groups)
Treatment 3 - both of the above
Since it was too expensive to take the Virtual Reality headsets to participants, the subjects had to be transported to the centres in groups. However, what Umar’s team hadn’t predicted was the complications that arose from cultural sensitivity around gender segregation in Pakistan, which created logistical issues that had a knock-on effect on the evaluation process: "I didn’t want to invite both girls and boys together because it's a sensitive issue and I wanted to respect everybody’s preferences. This meant that on experimental design front, I can't just randomise individuals, I have to randomise blocks, with one block which is male-only, one which is female-only".
That is to say, a lack of consideration for cultural nuances such as gender norms and preferences can significantly impact your sample numbers and the rigour of the evaluation.
Challenge 4: Bureaucratic Buy-In
It’s not hard to miss the most pressing issues in developing countries, says Umar. All you have to do is step outside in a city like Cape Town, South Africa, to be confronted with the extremities of wealth and poverty that permeate all aspects of society. The array of issues that exist in developing contexts knows no bounds, from corruption to poverty, gender-based violence to healthcare, housing to education. Yet, despite bountiful options to choose from, Umar argues that the behavioural insights (BI) field continues to evade them: "Where do we see initial BI work happening? In the area of health or finance or tax. Why? Because data was already there. We like to do things that are easy, that require the least effort."
This is just one of the ways in which buy-in is skewing BI results. Part of the reason for the reluctance to move towards these issues could be their inherent complexity. For example, says Umar, the struggle to isolate the factors that lead to violent extremism can make measuring very difficult. “The challenge is then to involve world-class researchers and get them to do research in developing countries where there is the greatest potential for BI impact. When people are on the ground, they see it. You can engage them and you can motivate researchers to understand the importance of some of these areas.” This lack of problem awareness and drive could also be exacerbating difficulties with getting buy-in from decision-makers to get the go-ahead to work on the world's most pressing issues, says Umar.
A way forward
Despite the daunting nature of these challenges, perhaps with more information and better communication between those in equally challenging contexts, we can support each other through them. Lessons like those Umar has shared with us should not remain within the confines of a single team. They hold the power to save precious time and resources for BI teams globally - equally for those that are well established as for those that are just starting. By sharing our nuggets of wisdom on challenges faced, we can curb a negative impact on the overall growth of BI work in the Global South and ultimately, global development.