Approach
Common worked with Mott MacDonald to assess the effectiveness of various incentive schemes designed to encourage millers to fortify their flour. The incentives included the free provision of equipment, different levels of subsidy to reduce the cost of the fortifying premix, and a marketing campaign to increase consumer demand for fortified foods. We developed a discrete choice experiment and a behaviour change survey to test all these options with millers in Pakistan, with data collected by VTT Global.
We discovered that the millers’ preferences strongly depended on whether the government regulates the fortification of flour. In scenarios where fortification was mandatory, they favoured a marketing campaign over subsidies and equipment. Without regulation, they had no clear preference for one incentive over another. Importantly, in either scenario they did not seem to differentiate between different levels of financial support: they were as likely to fortify with 50% subsidy as 80%. The results of the study will be used to inform the programme’s approach to ensuring the maximum number of industrial millers fortify flour and oil, with resources deployed on the most effective strategies.
People
Edward Gardiner, Dr Umar Taj
Disciplines
Behavioural science, Experimentation