ESTABLISHING PAKISTAN'S FIRST-EVER BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS UNIT IN THE FINANCE DEPARTMENT, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA
USING BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS FOR A MORE EFFECTIVE POLICY DESIGN
BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS UNIT
Nudges are small, cost-effective interventions to promote behavioural change in people – for instance, in Kenya, road accidents were reduced by 25 per cent between 2007–2009 using motivational stickers encouraging the public to speak up when their bus driver was exhibiting reckless driving. There are now over 200 nudge/behavioural insights units worldwide―ranging between governmental, non-governmental, academic, and multinational institutions and organisations.
BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS UNIT
COLLABORATION WITH MENA REGION'S FIRST BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS UNIT
SEED reached out to the B4Development Foundation (B4D)―Qatar’s ‘Nudge Unit’ ― to develop a comprehensive proposal for the Unit. SEED and B4D have since worked closely with the Finance Department to set up the MindLab. Government officials from the Finance Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority, and the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department got trained by world-renowned behavioural science experts engaged with B4Development. The trained officials will soon become part of the Unit and explore which behavioural tools may help improve taxpayer morale and compliance in KP.
The Finance Department, with support from B4Development and SEED organised a session to share the global experiences of applying behavioural insights and nudge theory for improving traffic rules compliance. The session explored learnings from successful nudge experiments carried out in other countries on raising compliance with traffic rules and was attended by the Peshawar police and traffic officials.
KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA MINDLAB
The MindLab BIU will focus on revenue mobilisation from provincial taxes. The first experiment, in partnership with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority (KPRA), has been running since June 2022. It focuses on gauging the impact of behaviourally informed SMS messages on the filing rates of the sales tax on service. SMS messages – baseline and intervention – are being sent to 18087 registered taxpayers, and the impact of the messages will be analysed across different sectors, taxpayer types and gender. In the future, it may be repurposed to support behavioural adjustments in other policy domains, such as health, sanitation, and traffic rules compliance.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mindlab, Pakistan’s first behavioural insights unit for public policy, announced the first of its webinar series on nudges for policy making, hosted in collaboration with the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre (MHRC) and LUMS Live. This webinar focused on the use of behavioural insights to improve tax compliance and revenue collection.
MINDLAB
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