Behavioural Insights

Behavioural Insights draw on diverse disciplines such as psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience to understand and explain human behavior and decision-making. Research in behavioural science — regarding how people make decisions and act on them, how they think about, influence, and relate to one another, and how they develop beliefs and attitudes — can increase effectiveness of not only programmatic interventions but also overall organizational performance.

Behavioural Insights to Prevent Violent Extremism (Sudan, Yemen)
Spreading across national borders, Violent Extremist (VE) groups have claimed the lives of many innocent people and terrorized many others. In response to a growing urgency, UNDP has developed a global framework for Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE), highlighting the need to identify the causes of and solutions to VE. Using Behavioural Insights (BI), UNDP colleagues and national partners in Sudan and Yemen, with the support of BI experts at NudgeLebanon, are working to identify triggers and disruptors to radicalization and violent extremism. In Yemen, the team is exploring how to apply BI to motivate greater participation in their psycho-social support programmes. In Sudan, the team is looking to address relapse to violence among prisoners. Using these experiences, the regional Innovation team and NudgeLebanon are developing a knowledge product to support colleagues and national partners on the use of BI to prevent violent extremism.

Behavioural Insights and designing low-cost evaluations to combat violence against women (Egypt)

In partnership with UNDP Egypt and the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) is leveraging Behavioural Insights (BI) to combat gender-based violence (GBV). In 2017, 30 partners and colleagues received theoretical and practical training on applying BI and designing low-cost evaluations to combat violence against women. One objective was to train participants in the use of behavioral science to improve public policy outcomes in prevention and response to domestic violence and sexual harassment in public spaces. A second objective was to design experiments for behaviorally-informed interventions, ready for prototyping and testing.

Kuwait Policy Appraisal Lab
UNDP Kuwait and Kuwait’s General Secretariat of the Supreme Council of Planning and Development (GSSCPD) have collaborated in the establishment of a pioneering Kuwait Public Policy Centre (KPPC). The mandate of KPPC is to address policy-making gaps and mainstream policy research, analysis and studies in the policy making process. To realize that, a behavioral insights unit has been established with the aim to apply the latest findings on behavioral science and economics into public policies. The BI unit is designed to provide a platform and tools for policy experimentation in challenging areas.