Social Behavioral Change Consultancy SCI Ref# PR/B/2020/344

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In Lebanon and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.

Save the Children International in Lebanon is inviting submissions of tenders for a contract to provide the following service: 

•    Social Behavioral Change Consultancy
SCI Ref# PR/B/2020/344
Detailed technical specifications are included within the tender documents. 
 

Scope of the Consultancy:

In order to contextualize this program for the Lebanon environment, a consultant is sought to identify and address cognitive bottlenecks in effective cash transfer and social behavioral change related to household alleviation of child poverty. Research and messaging will accompany the financial and human capital activities received by families, allowing them a temporary reprieve from the burdens of chronic scarcity and thus improved ability to set long-term goals, make realistic plans, and act on these despite routine pressures, biases and stresses.

This specialist behavioral science consultancy firm will undertake a rigorous research around the increased ability of households to make decisions and take the actions outside of their normal routine, in order to improve their long-term earnings prospects and reduce reliance on social protection assistance. This will produce an evidence-based analysis that not only elicits the drivers of behaviors, but also addresses their causality and relative weight or importance. Based on this analysis, the consultancy firm will engage with the Inma’a Consortium members to recommend and adapt programming as needed to ensure impact.

Responsibilities:

Behavioral design elements included in the program design will include the following, using Randomized Control Testing (RCT) to identify successful elements disaggregated by distinct target groups, and expanding on them in consecutive years to benefit from the multi-year approach.

- The design of targeted behavioral interventions which are light-touch and low-to-marginal cost program components taking advantage of recent research in psychology and behavioral economics that reduce cognitive burdens faced by beneficiaries living in states of constant need (“cognitive scarcity”) and allow them to make more intentional decisions about maximizing the impact of their participation in the program and follow-through on these decisions.

- Include psychologically enriched goal-setting activities integrated into initial outreach and beneficiary-facing communication. In livelihood counselling, include plan-making and goal-tracking tools facilitated close to the moment of payments or asset transfers, and physical “mental accounting” tools that enable the intentional separation of capital resources dedicated to different expenditure categories.

- Testing these interventions in a rigorous and systematic way to identify the “optimal mix” of intervention components that maximize cost-effectiveness and enable continuous iteration/improvement, including through the use of qualitative user-testing, quasi-experimental observational studies and RCT as appropriate.

- Co-lead on the development of policy briefs or program reports based on findings from these activities and inform regular monitoring of uptake of services and the behavioral barriers that may exist. Support this learning to be integrated into the coaching approach on a regular basis in order to reduce possibilities of dropout and increase likelihood of achieving self-reliance objectives.

- Contribute learning to the final evaluation of the program including a comparison of types of social assistance received and for different groups. This will support the body of evidence to make recommendations for graduation programs, as well as the effectiveness of social protection programs in relation to their potential coverage to mitigate child poverty (child-sensitivity), and ability to be used as a tool to scale up support to a higher number of people. As such, report and evaluation-related outputs should incorporate research questions that investigate the option to expand both the horizontal and the vertical scope of similar programs.