Busara

Attending the 2024 Africa Evidence Summit in Dar es Salaam? Stop by the poster session to engage with some of our research work! Anushka Ghosh, Benjamin Gerald, Brenda A. Ogutu, Pauline Wanjeri, Robert Nyaga, PhD, Salim Kombo, and Shalmali Ghaisas will be there to guide you through it. Keep an eye on our website for the posters later this week. Many thanks to Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) for this opportunity. #AES2024 #research #researchposters #posterpresentations

🔍 🤔 Did You Know? In #Asia & #Africa, women spend between 3-5x as many hours on unpaid care and domestic work as men, performing 80% of the total hours devoted to unpaid care work in the household. We believe that innovative market-based solutions to recognize, reward, reduce and redistribute care activities exist, and are increasing. These include: 👶 Child Care Services 👵 Elderly Care Services ⛑ Domestic Workforce 🔧 Labour saving Products/Services Intellecap was an integral part of the "Transforming the Care Economy through Impact Investing (TCEII) Program'' - established with a mission to empower women and girls by identifying social innovations, market-based solutions, and investable opportunities to create a positive transformation in the care economy. Intellecap conducted a deep-dive analysis of 40 care businesses in Africa and Asia. This analysis focused on understanding the solutions provided by these care businesses, their business and operational model, their challenges, opportunities and the subsequent impact created. You can find more information about the selected cohort here: https://lnkd.in/g57niZVg #impactatscale #careeconomy #IntellecapImpact #ForPeopleandPlanet Amar Gokhale Karnika Yadav Shraddha Kothari Ruchi Sankrit Lynn Olendo Carol Faith

Glad to have represented Busara in offering a successful training course in Dar es Salaam alongside an amazing team of trainers drawn from Economic and Social Research Foundation and Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)- Priya Nair, Eitan Paul, PhD, Clare Hofmeyr, Raquel Caldeira, Zakayo Zakaria, Fortunata Songora Makene

Excited to share that we've just wrapped up our "Conducting Experimental Research" course in partnership with Economic and Social Research Foundation and Busara! 📚🎓 This intensive 4.5-day workshop brought together PhD students and researchers from across sub-Saharan Africa to deepen their understanding of randomized evaluations. A big thank you to all participants who joined us from July 4-9 in Dar es Salaam. Your enthusiasm and engagement made this course a success! This course is part of our ongoing commitment to building research capacity in Africa. We're thrilled to see the innovative ideas emerging from this talented group of researchers. Interested in future courses, funding opportunities and webinars? Sign up to our African Scholars registry: www.tfaforms.com/4958837 #ImpactEvaluation #DevelopmentEconomics #ResearchCapacity #AfricanScholars #JPAL

Today, our lab and project teams are coming together to share their insights on gamification from various perspectives. They'll be discussing: 1) How #gamification can be applied in various settings 3) How to measure the impact of game mechanisms on behavior change. 4) Main challenges when designing & testing games in the lab and implementing them in real life. 5) Ethical considerations to take into account when designing games. Do you have any questions about how we use lab games or gamification elements in our work? Share them below, and then join us at 6 pm EAT for an in-depth conversation by registering here: https://lnkd.in/dUu6QBNP   In the meantime, Zeena Oberoi has answered some of these questions in her latest Groundwork: https://lnkd.in/d55kB2md #labgames #games #development #internationaldevelopment #behaviorscience #behaviorchange #decisionmaking

How did games evolve from mere entertainment to powerful development tools? In her Groundwork, Zeena Oberoi highlights influential figures and milestones that have shaped #gamification: https://lnkd.in/d55kB2md Key pioneers include: 1) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who introduced the flow theory in 1975, laying the groundwork for the gamification discourse. 2) Tom Malone, who pioneered video game-based learning and the theory of intrinsically motivating instruction in 1981. 3) James Paul Gee, who used insights from the Tomb Raider series to explore educational opportunities within gaming experiences. 4) The Serious Games movement, led by Ben Sawyer and David Rejeski in 2002, which united various sectors to explore the potential of games for educational and simulation purposes. 5) Companies like Conundra and Bunchball, which pioneered the application of game mechanics and design principles to consumer products and business operations in the early 2000s. Building on this history, our #research goes beyond literature reviews and interviews. We've applied gamification techniques in the field, particularly in the #agriculture and #riskmitigation sectors. Additionally, we use various games in our #behavioralscience labs to measure key #decisionmaking variables. Join Zeena Oberoi, Jennifer Adhiambo, Murtaza Fazlehussein, Julia Hammann, and Pauline Wanjeri tomorrow for a #webinar where they'll share insights from the lab and field. Register here: https://lnkd.in/dUu6QBNP 

Over the past 1.5 years, we've conducted two experiments in India and Kenya to uncover the barriers and levers of recycling behavior. This Thursday, Aanchal Sharrma and Hilde Hendrickx will be sharing insights from this project in a webinar organized by TRANSFORM (Unilever, FCDO & EY). They will discuss: 1) Key findings on recycling and behavior change in the Global South. 2) The role of behavior change in advancing a Waste-Free World. 3) How SMEs and large corporations can drive behavior change among consumers and employees to promote waste reduction. 4) How to integrate practical research insights into your business Other speakers include: Divya Hedge Holly McCann Luisa Odell Noshin S. Register here: https://lnkd.in/ePj_QY9r

Gamification has transformed loyalty programs and fitness apps by driving customer engagement and encouraging healthier lifestyles. But its potential extends far beyond these realms. Building upon our collaboration with CIAT in 2023, we conducted a study to explore the broader applications of gamification, particularly in the Global South. Through our review of over 40 open-source databases and key informant interviews with organizations, researchers, and game developers, we sought to uncover;  i) What research tells us about gamification, and how development practitioners are applying #gamification in the Global South. ii) The interaction between gamification and behavioral science. iii) Current use cases of gamification in the Global South, and their effectiveness. Zeena Oberoi has documented our findings in our latest Groundwork, available here: https://lnkd.in/d55kB2md  Usiku Games

Here are some key takeaways from a conversation between Alisa Zomer from the MIT GOV/LAB and Gideon Too, an Associate Vice President at Busara regarding the ongoing #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests in #Kenya; 1) The movement rejecting the #FinanceBill is unique because it has unfolded organically, spurred by online debate, and leaderless, with a focus on policy issues not individuals. Protests were organized in large part by young Kenyans and particularly #GenZ (born 1997-2012), who are social-media and tech savvy but are often politically disengaged. 2) When people are politically educated, they gain agency and become empowered to meaningfully engage in political change — not just during elections, but around policy issues. 3) Biases, conscious and unconscious, are critical in how political information is created, disseminated, and consumed; how that information moves through online and offline networks; and whether citizen mobilization takes off or is derailed. 4) Sustained citizen engagement requires constant innovation and interaction, novel ways to communicate and organize through social media, opportunities to practice and strengthen political agency, and, importantly, a government that responds to its citizens. This feedback loop is what creates accountability and a strong democracy. Find the entire Q&A here: https://lnkd.in/ddVazT2U #governance #protests #politics #democracy

Busara operates at the intersection between behavioral science, interdisciplinary research, program implementation, and global development. In this field, #DEI is a hotly-debated topic that is also not easy to implement. Historically, most research on human behavior and decision-making has been conducted in the Global North. Currently, only 1% of first authors from the Global South are published in international psychology journals, leading to a significant data gap and skewed policies that risk reinforcing stereotypes. How can #DEI be realized in such an environment? Scholars suggest that localization is key. At Busara, we believe localization goes beyond publishing more authors from the Global South; it involves disseminating the findings in an inclusive manner. However, power dynamics in knowledge production and sharing, coupled with funding challenges, create a tension between organization building and survival. Our DEI framework helps navigate these challenges through three pillars: 1) Belief: Belief is expressed through our principles which can include aiming to act in the interest of the people in our community, and having a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. 2) Practice: Practice is how we make our beliefs come alive. This can be through policies, norms, our research methods, our client approaches. The practices we adopt determine whether we 'walk the talk'. 3) Emotion: DEI is about people - and people are emotional beings. How we feel (positive or negative) about diversity, equity, and inclusion can significantly affect our behaviors and decisions. Learn more from Stanley Ngugi and Mareike Schomerus in this Groundwork: https://lnkd.in/gcYGiuXR