This post is written by Dr Fadi Makki, Director of B4Development and Founder of Nudge Lebanon, and Nabil Saleh, Executive VP at Nudge Lebanon.

  • **The problem: **While behavioural science has risen to prominence over the past decade with hundreds of nudge units established around the world, much of the research and literature stems from studies conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic countries.
  • **Why it matters: **Behaviour is affected by cultural and social norms, therefore research conducted in Europe and the North American continent might not necessarily work well in the Global South.
  • **The solution: **The application of behavioural insights can be scaled up through collaborative work of nudge units in the Middle East and the Global South.

The growing use of behavioural insights collected from multidisciplinary research in fields such as economics, psychology and neuroscience is leading to a better understanding of how humans behave and make decisions in everyday life. At least, this helps decision-makers start with more realistic assumptions about people when designing new policies, and not rely solely on intuition. Recent successes in the use of behavioural insights and nudge theory – thanks in large part to Thaler and Sunstein – are putting pressure on governments around the globe to leverage these trends and test what works through experimentation Today, there are a few hundred Nudge Units working on experiments in almost every area of public policy.

In the Middle East, Qatar and Lebanon led the way with their Nudge Units, B4Development and Nudge Lebanon, in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Since then almost every country in the Middle East has either set up a dedicated unit or experimented with a behavioural trial.

Being the first Nudge Units in the region, many lessons can be derived mostly from the operations of B4Development and Nudge Lebanon as well as others over the past few years.

What to know

First, and with regard to the set up and positioning of nudge units, lack of trust and fear of manipulation in government initiatives - particularly in third world countries - makes nongovernmental units more appealing. However, this comes with a downside, namely the danger that an NGO would operate in a vacuum without political support.

Many Nudge Units, such as the UK Behavioural Insights Team, and the original White House Social and Behavioural Sciences Team, have had senior positioning and enjoyed strong leadership support, particularly at launch. B4Development followed suit, having been incubated for the first few years of its operations within the office of the Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), the entity responsible for the delivery of the required infrastructure and host country planning and operations for Qatar to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup™. After the incubation period, B4Development spun out in the form of a foundation.

In general, collaboration of Nudge Units with governments is essential to have access to data, as in most cases governments sit on a goldmine of data. Access to such data can push the frontiers of NGOs’ work by providing extensive opportunities for experimentation and evaluation, thus enhancing the provision of evidence-based recommendations. While it is difficult for governmental units to operate without senior government buy-in, it is equally difficult for NGO BIs units to operate without strong partnership and collaboration with government.

Learning from academia

Second, a strong link with academia is a key success factor for Nudge Units and behavioural insights initiatives, especially if the unit is an NGO. In Arab countries, close links to academia can be maintained by including professors as part of academic panels and boards, conducting joint experiments, as well as inviting fellows and interns. It could also be done through joint teaching of experiential courses on behavioural sciences which allow students to work on behavioural experiments that seek to address challenges that their countries are facing.

“Context matters”: what has worked in one geography might not necessarily work in another.

Both B4Development and Nudge Lebanon have led the delivery of experiential courses in several universities including the American University of Beirut, the Lebanese University, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and the American University of Kuwait.

Bringing these collaborations and partnerships should typically be done through communities of practice of researchers and practitioners who have knowledge of and strong interest in behavioural science. These communities of practice meet regularly to share information on behavioural science in various fields, keep up with the latest findings of behavioural insights, discuss new experiments and applications of behavioural sciences to public policy, and organize events and conduct training sessions. While Qatar, Lebanon and Kuwait have launched their own communities of practice, a recent initiative has called on all countries to join in efforts and launch an Arab-wide community of practice, known as ARABEC. The annual BX Arabia summit is perhaps to date the best example of such collaboration between NGOs, governments and academia in the area of behavioural science in the Arab world.

Whether in government or outside of it, in the first phase of operation, units must aim to balance their portfolio of experiments between smaller and more complex experiments. Achieving quick wins and going for “low hanging fruits” to raise awareness around the use of behavioural insights in public policy is extremely important to show proof of concept. But this must be done in parallel with working on longer terms projects to tackle more complex challenges.

The importance of quick wins

There is another reason why quick wins early on are essential. Using relevant local examples in the narrative with policymakers is highly impactful in facilitating buy-in from the government. A legitimate response from government officials when discussing behavioural science experimentation is that “context matters”: what has worked in one geography might not necessarily work in another. For Arab countries, this is all the more important given their specific cultural and socio-economic context, which would be relevant for scaling up behavioural interventions.

A related lesson is the importance of beneficiary buy-in, especially if the entity conducting the experiment is an NGO. Collaboration with “operational champions” within involved institutions is critical in the process of designing effective interventions as this bottom-up approach provides an understanding of operational aspects and exposure to onsite challenges and bottlenecks. This enables the Nudge Unit to identify intervention opportunities and design specific targeted nudges.

Collaboration of Nudge Units with governments is essential to have access to data, as in most cases governments sit on a goldmine of data.

Last, and perhaps one of the most important areas for future focus is the need for ethical reviews. While academic behavioural insights units naturally benefit from ethical reviews by virtue of being located in a university, typically through an Institutional Review Board (IRB), most non-academic nudge initiatives do not have this, though many are now establishing some internal ethical review process, or adopting the processes of partner academic institutions when involved with joint experiments. B4Development and Nudge Lebanon are increasingly using the IRB of partner academic institutions, especially with regard to experiments that involve vulnerable groups. At the same time, it is not uncommon for non-governmental nudge units to engage private IRB institutions for ethical review. This said, all stakeholders involved in behavioural interventions in the Arab world should be encouraged to have similar processes.

Nudge Units in the Middle East are part of broader initiatives in the Global South that seek to make behavioural science less focused on WEIRD countries (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) where much of the research is concentrated. Since behaviour is affected by cultural and social norms, the research that is conducted in WEIRD cultures does not necessarily apply within the context of non-WEIRD societies – again, context matters!

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