Events

Changing Behavior Webinar Series: Increasing Product Uptake and Adoption through Campaigns

Thank you for participating in the second presention of the “Changing Behavior” Webinar Series. Please find below responses form our speakers–Francis Wainaina of Practical Action in Kenya, Prajwal Shakya of AEPC in Nepal, and Juliet Gibbs of CARES in Uganda– to the questions that were not addressed during the live session. 

What do you mean by “digital cooking”?

Practical Action: I was referring to our campaign’s Swahili tag line ‘Upishi Diji’ which loosely translates to digital cooking in English. ‘Digital’ in this case referring to something modern and aspirational.  

Which cook stove performed better during the campaign — mud cookstoves or metal cookstoves?

AEPC

• The campaigns are basically designed to promote mud cookstoves as they are not subsidized by the government, but assisted for conducting activities related to awareness generation and demand creation. However, in the case of metal cookstoves, there are subsidy provisions to the manufacturers to conduct promotional activities individually, as well as use to use the platform by AEPC to conduct various activities. 
• The majority of the cookstoves disseminated under AEPC are mud-based cookstoves. However, we are gradually moving towards metal cookstoves. 

I congratulate Prajwal for the very inclusive changing behavior campaigns in Nepal. I would like to know who they managed to fund to integrate all the BCC activities? 

AEPC

• The majority of the activities related to awareness generation and demand creation are conducted by the regional centers established at regional and local partner levels. The budget and the stipulated activities were centrally allocated which were decided upon installation targets that were given to the regional centers and local implementing partners. 
• The dissemination activities were funded through the Government budget and the international development partners under various programmes. You can learn more on AEPC’s website at www.aepc.gov.np. 

Did I understand correctly the graph attached from the 2nd presentation: workshops (number 2 on the graph) are the most cost-effective behavior change action, they cost 3000 USD to run to reach on average 60 people, with a 32.5% conversion rate so about 20 participants buying – corresponding to a cost of 150 USD per stove sold?

• All the cost mentioned in the presentation are in Nepalese rupees. (1 USD ~ 102 NRs)
• The cost is exclusive of human resource who are basically salaried staffs.

Do any of you have experience working with solar cookers, particularly involving behavior change campaigns?

AEPC: Solar cookers have not been able to gain popularity in the Nepalese context due to specific cooking behaviors. 

CARES: Not me!

Can you share a few tips on how to approach the measurement of behavior change, where do you start and how do you go about it? 

AEPC: AEPC is recently conducting a survey on behavior change with the introduction of tier 3 level or higher stove categories with the support from World Bank under the DISC programme. The results can be shared once the study is concluded.

Practical Action:

• At the start, undertake a baseline of the target audience. 
• Then, undertake some follow up reviews to check for any changes as a result of the campaign (midline and endline). 
• Note that for a successful campaign, the target audience will demonstrate a change in their attitudes and way of doing certain things. As such, retention of the campaign message is a good indicator of progress as is adoption of the expected behavior.

CARES: I would think that the best way would be to use the same guidelines that your organization typically uses to asses impact. It is also important to use control groups to determine the real causal effect on behaviour in addition to reported success stories. 

Do any of the institutions on this webinar offer micro-credit programs? Or did they work with organizations that offer consumer financing?

CARES: I worked in Uganda with some FIs but on solar kits, not cookstoves.