The BI4H Collaboratory: A Community of Practice for Behavioral Insights in Humanitarian Settings

by Sarah Wilson, Ale Defilippo, Britt Titus

This November, Airbel’s Behavioral Insights team launched a first ever Community of Practice focused on Behavioral Insights for Humanitarian Contexts. Beyond bringing together researchers and practitioners leading behavioral insights work in the humanitarian community across 4 continents, this CoP is shaped as a Collaboratory: A space for close collaboration to find solutions to common challenges. Organizations attending the kick-off meeting included Busara, the Behavioral Insights Team, Save the Children, Nudge Lebanon, USAID, 17 Triggers, UNICEF, Ideas42, and Dalberg Behavioral Insights.

Participants will share best practices and case studies, discuss challenges in the application of behavioral insights approaches and research, co-design new guidance, and collaborate on solutions to challenges.

While behavioral science has been shown to improve program implementation and uptake across the world, less is known about its application in humanitarian contexts. Though seemingly similar to settings in the global south, humanitarian contexts present specific challenges for behavioral science: the need for immediate action to safeguard lives, the complex institutional environment surrounding refugees and displaced populations, and the post-emergency psychology that drives behaviors in potentially unexpected ways. This applies both to participants for whom solutions are designed, as well as for the staff and frontline workers that design and implement programs. To start the conversation, the first BI4H Collaboratory meeting centered around the question of how the behavioral insights approach may need to be adapted in humanitarian contexts, compared to development settings. In small groups, participants discussed the need to tailor the approach, prioritize basic needs, delve deeply into the unique psychology of post-conflict settings, and be iterative and adaptive in our learning methodologies.

Conversations also cited the importance of sustainability and adaptability in the design of interventions in these complex and rapidly-changing settings.

“It was exciting to see how many people are thinking about the application of behavioral insights in these contexts and already doing impactful work at this intersection” said Airbel Behavioral Insights lead Britt Titus.

Options for ongoing participation in the BI4H Community of Practice include both a Collaboratory option as well as a Knowledge Exchange option for social impact organizations applying behavioral insights in humanitarian settings. The Collaboratory will provide a safe space for honest conversation and problem-solving to enable organizations active in this field to work through questions related to the application and research of behavioral science. The Knowledge Exchange option is open to all and will allow organizations to share case studies, presentations and lessons learned to a larger external audience.

“Applying behavioral insights in humanitarian contexts goes beyond translating and adapting evidence from elsewhere; it requires a unique approach to make communities co-designers, understand what drives behavior, and solve practical constraints. Many organizations are grappling with the same challenges, so this space comes at the right time to help move the field forward” commented Alexandra De Filippo, strategic advisor to the IRC on behavioral insights.

Grounding behavioral insights work in a deep understanding of context demands a participatory approach that centers the people we serve, those with lived experience of the problem and solutions. For this reason, a core aim of the BI4H Community of Practice is to learn from and support organizations based in and/or represented by practitioners from the Global South.

Collaboratory and Knowledge Exchange meetings are scheduled to start in Q1 2023. Social purpose, international or non-profit organizations and academic institutions who are applying behavioral science in the global south, who are interested in participating, can fill in the following google form to learn more.