Discussion » [E-Discussion] Investigating Behavior Change within RBF Projects
[E-Discussion] Investigating Behavior Change within RBF Projects
Welcome to the RBF/OBA Community of Practice’s e-discussion on Behavior Change. Over the course of three days, June 13-15, 2017,
the community aims to foster an open dialogue between specialists on Results-Based Financing (RBF) and Behavior Change. We hope to have a lively, stimulating discussion and welcome your questions and comments.
Our e-discussants are @Jacqueline Devine, Sr. Social Marketing Specialist (Water Practice) and Oleh P. Khalayim, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist (GPOBA)
Discussion board guidelines: Please be respectful of our e-discussants and other e-discussion participants. Please be patient as we compile responses to your comments and questions, we will do our best to respond in a timely fashion. There are no "bad" questions, so ask away! Background materials:
Background Presentation:
In preparation for the e-discussion, we are excited to share initial findings, see presentation: Investigating Behavior Change within RBF Projects, based on a desk review of documents. We seek feedback from RBF community and stakeholders on key questions.
Have a question for the experts? Click on the reply button below this window.
OBA RBF Knowledge Hub
All,
Let me echo Oleh's welcome and look forward to your comments and suggestions on the way forward to deepen and sharpen this inquiry.
Warm regards,
Jacqueline
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Dear All,
Welcome to the e-discussion, Jacqueline and I look forward to receiving your comments.
Results-Based Financing, with its OBA subset, is a tool that focuses on delivery by aligning incentives of the implementing partner and the financiers. The implementing partners mobilize pre-financing, putting some skin in the game (to use Warren Buffett's term). The principal-agent problem is a standard setup in mainstream economics and social science: implementation risks are managed better if the agent's incentives are aligned with those of the principal. The rational agent responds to carefully-structured incentive rationally.
On the other hand, "behavior change" deals with the thinking that may not be rational, i.e. automatic thinking, social norms and mental models. We hope to hear from you whether RBF also pushes the implementing partners and beneficiaries to discard irrational automatic thinking, social norms and mental models. For example, World Bank counterparts often underbudget access to water sewer for the poor because their record of historical costs is from the richer areas where water access costs less (because it's closer to the sewer network, it's not a low-lying area, etc.). RBF/OBA pushes the implementing partner to address this irrational and discriminatory underbudgeting. Behavior change specialists call this push an "ethnographic immersion".
I am looking forward to hearing your perspective and examples of biases than RBF/OBA is better positioned to address.
Through its projects GPOBA managed to influence behavior change at different levels – households/consumers, government stakeholders, private sector providers, etc. The role of the government is crucial to the success particularly for establishing an enabling environment which would allow for replication or scaling up. OBA appeals to client governments, especially those with willingness to adopt innovative approaches to service delivery. Some governments that have been skeptical about increasing the role of the private sector in infrastructure service provision have actually welcomed OBA as a way to target service to the poor, while holding private operators accountable for agreed outputs.
By helping the consumers access efficient, clean, and reliable services and facilities, that otherwise would be unaffordable, OBA projects opened new perspectives and brought significant improvements to their lifestyles and influenced behaviors. Armenia heating and gas project offered a clean, efficient, and low-cost heating solution to vulnerable households. Many of the poor families were unable to afford the cost of connecting to gas networks and heating facilities/equipment, others relied on costly electricity or polluting solid fuels for heating solutions, or even worse, on hand-made heaters that were an eminent health and safety hazard to the family and to the building. In early 2000s, this was a life-changing intervention for the most vulnerable people.
In many countries access to finance by local operators has been a key challenge. With the OBA subsidy acting as additional comfort, partnerships with micro-finance institutions to provide financing helped overcome the access to finance issue, and enabled implementation of viable financing schemes. In these cases, OBA subsidies provided the assurance that if outputs are delivered as agreed, donor-funded subsidy payments will be disbursed.
Discussion » [E-Discussion] Investigating Behavior Change within RBF Projects
[E-Discussion] Investigating Behavior Change within RBF Projects
Welcome to the RBF/OBA Community of Practice’s e-discussion on Behavior Change. Over the course of three days, June 13-15, 2017,
the community aims to foster an open dialogue between specialists on Results-Based Financing (RBF) and Behavior Change. We hope to have a lively, stimulating discussion and welcome your questions and comments.
Our e-discussants are @Jacqueline Devine, Sr. Social Marketing Specialist (Water Practice) and Oleh P. Khalayim, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist (GPOBA)
Discussion board guidelines: Please be respectful of our e-discussants and other e-discussion participants. Please be patient as we compile responses to your comments and questions, we will do our best to respond in a timely fashion. There are no "bad" questions, so ask away! Background materials:
Background Presentation:
In preparation for the e-discussion, we are excited to share initial findings, see presentation: Investigating Behavior Change within RBF Projects, based on a desk review of documents. We seek feedback from RBF community and stakeholders on key questions.
Have a question for the experts? Click on the reply button below this window.
All,
Let me echo Oleh's welcome and look forward to your comments and suggestions on the way forward to deepen and sharpen this inquiry.
Warm regards,
Jacqueline
Dear All,
Welcome to the e-discussion, Jacqueline and I look forward to receiving your comments.
Results-Based Financing, with its OBA subset, is a tool that focuses on delivery by aligning incentives of the implementing partner and the financiers. The implementing partners mobilize pre-financing, putting some skin in the game (to use Warren Buffett's term). The principal-agent problem is a standard setup in mainstream economics and social science: implementation risks are managed better if the agent's incentives are aligned with those of the principal. The rational agent responds to carefully-structured incentive rationally.
On the other hand, "behavior change" deals with the thinking that may not be rational, i.e. automatic thinking, social norms and mental models. We hope to hear from you whether RBF also pushes the implementing partners and beneficiaries to discard irrational automatic thinking, social norms and mental models. For example, World Bank counterparts often underbudget access to water sewer for the poor because their record of historical costs is from the richer areas where water access costs less (because it's closer to the sewer network, it's not a low-lying area, etc.). RBF/OBA pushes the implementing partner to address this irrational and discriminatory underbudgeting. Behavior change specialists call this push an "ethnographic immersion".
I am looking forward to hearing your perspective and examples of biases than RBF/OBA is better positioned to address.
Through its projects GPOBA managed to influence behavior change at different levels – households/consumers, government stakeholders, private sector providers, etc. The role of the government is crucial to the success particularly for establishing an enabling environment which would allow for replication or scaling up. OBA appeals to client governments, especially those with willingness to adopt innovative approaches to service delivery. Some governments that have been skeptical about increasing the role of the private sector in infrastructure service provision have actually welcomed OBA as a way to target service to the poor, while holding private operators accountable for agreed outputs.
By helping the consumers access efficient, clean, and reliable services and facilities, that otherwise would be unaffordable, OBA projects opened new perspectives and brought significant improvements to their lifestyles and influenced behaviors. Armenia heating and gas project offered a clean, efficient, and low-cost heating solution to vulnerable households. Many of the poor families were unable to afford the cost of connecting to gas networks and heating facilities/equipment, others relied on costly electricity or polluting solid fuels for heating solutions, or even worse, on hand-made heaters that were an eminent health and safety hazard to the family and to the building. In early 2000s, this was a life-changing intervention for the most vulnerable people.
In many countries access to finance by local operators has been a key challenge. With the OBA subsidy acting as additional comfort, partnerships with micro-finance institutions to provide financing helped overcome the access to finance issue, and enabled implementation of viable financing schemes. In these cases, OBA subsidies provided the assurance that if outputs are delivered as agreed, donor-funded subsidy payments will be disbursed.