Research Assistance for Behavior Science and Nudges to support SDG progress in Albania

Details

Mission and objectives

The UN Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) supports the Resident Coordinator in promoting Albania’s attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Agenda 2030. The RCO further provides strategic guidance and coordination support for the design and delivery of the Albania-United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2022-2026. RCOs fulfill five key functions in support of the responsibilities of the RC and the UNCT: (1) strategic planning; (2) development economics; (3) partnerships and development finance; (4) data and results management and reporting; and (5) communications and advocacy.

Context

On January 1, 2019, the UN Secretary-General launched a significant global reform agenda, as a response to General Assembly resolutions 71/243 and 72/279, to enhance the UN Development System's efficiency and impact in achieving the 2030 Agenda for global dignity, prosperity, and peace on a healthy planet. This reform emphasizes the strengthening of UN Resident Coordinator Offices worldwide, led by the empowered UN Resident Coordinator, the top representative of the UN Development System at the country level. These offices have been enhanced with expertise in areas such as coordination, strategic planning, economics, policy support, results monitoring, evaluation, strategic partnerships, and communications. The aim is to better coordinate the collective efforts of UN Country Teams, including various UN agencies, funds, and programs, to support national goals, and accelerate progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Under the direct supervision and in tandem with the Economist of RCO, the online volunteer will support the efforts to build on existing work on behavioural insights and nudge interventions gathered from across the globe to develop an evidence-based dataset and source of nudges for countries to utilize in their adoption of behaviorally informed policy development and implementation. We aim to explicitly specify how nudges can be used to positively impact the SDGs and their corresponding indicators. We will update and build on existing work and database consisting of 100 nudges whose outcome have links to the 17 SDGs and use the case of Albania to show how these interventions could be used to improve sustainable development outcomes. The end result should be a dataset of nudges with links to SDGs and quantification of impact, and a working paper describing the database and providing analytical application of the database to Albania. The expected start date of the collaboration is end of May 2024. This is a part time online position and can be pursued in parallel to other work or study commitments.

Task description

We are looking for one Online Volunteer who, under the guidance of the Economist of RCO, will support our efforts in developing a paper (to be co-authored by the online volunteer) and database on Behavior Science and Nudges to support SDG progress in Albania. The Online Volunteers will be tasked with support for: - Updating and expanding the existing Nudge Database - Developing a working paper based on existing work for the Nudge Database - Identify links of Nudges to SDG indicators and estimating quantitatively their effect (methodology to be developed together with the RCO Economist) - Conducting analysis of Nudges and identify relevant trends, patterns, and key findings - Examining whether there are any existing or past Behaviour Science/Nudge interventions in Albania - Looking into possibilities to develop a format of the Nudge Database publishable online - Advise on improvements of both Nudge database and the Working paper