Busara Center for Behavioral Economics

Busara Center for Behavioral Economics Busara is a research and advisory firm dedicated to understanding humans through data.

Busara is a state-of-the-art facility for experimental studies in behavioral economics and other social sciences, located in Nairobi, Kenya. The core of Busara is a pool of participants from the Nairobi slums, combined with a cluster of 20 networked computers with which researchers can investigate economic behavior and preferences. A central feature of the computer setup is that all computers have

touchscreen monitors; together with specially developed paradigms, this allows for the participation of not only computer-illiterate, but entirely illiterate populations.

“If a child washes his hands, he could eat with kings"—a powerful reminder, popularized by Chinua Achebe in Things Fall ...
25/03/2026

“If a child washes his hands, he could eat with kings"—a powerful reminder, popularized by Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart, that preparation and discipline create access to greatness.

On March 24, 2026, Busara lived this truth. We had the rare privilege to “wash our hands and dine in the presence of pioneers” as the National Commission for Science and Technology (NACOSTI) conducted a site visit at our Lavington offices.

This moment marked a critical milestone in our journey to becoming an accredited Institution Scientific and Ethics Review Committee (ISERC). The team carried out a rigorous assessment of our infrastructure, systems, and application processes as we continue to align with global standards for ethical research.

As an ISERC, Busara will be able to review, approve, and recommend modifications to studies involving human participants, ensuring that every study design and data use meet strict ethical and compliance standards before research begins.

For us, this is about building trust with communities, strengthening credibility, and positioning Africa at the forefront of high-quality, ethical behavioral science. Follow our journey as we move closer to IRB certification and continue to elevate the standard of research across the global majority.

People don’t disengage from democracy because they don’t care. They disengage because the story doesn’t speak to them. N...
19/03/2026

People don’t disengage from democracy because they don’t care. They disengage because the story doesn’t speak to them. Now imagine if we rewrote that story using evidence, not assumptions.

Join Busara, People Powered, and the Democracy Narratives Alliance for a webinar to launch "The Research Brief How to Talk about Democracy: What We Know (and Don’t Know)," which unpacks how narratives can strengthen democracy and why this moment demands sharper, more intentional storytelling.

The research draws from nearly 400 publications, 150+ studies, and contributions from over 30 global organizations and funders. It translates complex evidence into practical strategies you can actually use.

This session also marks the first public event of the Democracy Narratives Alliance, a global initiative focused on building narratives that increase engagement and support for democracy.

You’ll also hear directly from experts in the field:
• Clara Bois – Partnerships Director, People Powered
• Diana Dajer – Democracy Manager, Fundación Corona
• Elisenda Balleste Buxo – Program Manager, Global Democracy Coalition
• Gideon Too – Vice President, Busara
• Ryan Gem – Learning and Evaluation Manager, People Powered

If your work touches communications, research, policy, or community engagement, register now and get ahead of the narrative curve.

Register here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_p00CltIpTLygvBmAP1ZyFQ #/registration

Last week, we marked International Women's Day at Busara through the theme “Give to Gain.”Across the week, we reflected ...
18/03/2026

Last week, we marked International Women's Day at Busara through the theme “Give to Gain.”

Across the week, we reflected on what giving has meant across cultures, histories, and movements. As part of Women's History Month, some of the women on our team shared powerful stories of women who have shaped societies through courage, sacrifice, and action.

We revisited the story of the Aba Women’s Riot led by Nwanyeruwa, where collective resistance redefined power. We honored Sylvia Nagginda for her continued work uplifting women and youth in Uganda. We reflected on Bibi T**i Mohammed and her role in mobilizing women during the fight for independence. We also looked at Petra Kelly and her push for political and environmental change, and Ledys Restrepo whose journey speaks to resilience and rebuilding in post-conflict Colombia.

Alongside these reflections, we created space to give in ways that mattered, to celebrate ourselves at the “She Blooms” brunch, and to appreciate the women across our team through thoughtful gestures.

It was a reminder that giving is not always loud. Sometimes it is found in stories, in action, and in the quiet ways we make space for others.

Busara’s journey toward becoming an Institutional Scientific and Ethics Review Committee (ISERC) continues to gain momen...
11/03/2026

Busara’s journey toward becoming an Institutional Scientific and Ethics Review Committee (ISERC) continues to gain momentum.

Last week, members of the Busara committee participated in an intensive five-day training facilitated by National Commission for Science and Technology (NACOSTI). Led by the Secretariat team — Antony Mutunga, Gladys Muange, and Robert G. Nyaga, PhD — the committee members underwent rigorous sessions designed to strengthen their understanding of ethical review processes, research governance, and best practices in protecting research participants.

This training marks an important milestone as Busara works toward establishing a fully certified ISERC. Our goal is to contribute to strengthening ethical standards and advancing high-quality behavioral science research in Kenya and beyond.

We are grateful to National Commission for Science and Technology (NACOSTI) for their guidance and support as we take these important steps toward building a robust, credible, and independent ethics review structure that will support responsible and impactful research.

08/03/2026

In climate conversations, women often appear in the story. They rarely shape the script. That gap quietly changes the impact of every intervention.
This International Women’s Day, the theme “Give to Gain” pushes a simple but powerful idea into the spotlight. Real progress starts when we give women something many systems still withhold: decision-making power.

In her article “At Risk and Still Overlooked: Thinking About How We Design Interventions for Women,” Busara Senior Analyst Raya Shatry examines the uncomfortable questions that sit at the center of climate action and risk management:
✅ What changes when we move from including women to designing with women?
✅ What happens to impact when women are treated as beneficiaries rather than decision makers?
✅ And in a world facing growing climate risk, what does it truly mean to give power in order to gain resilience?

Behavioral science reminds us that who shapes the solution often determines whether the solution works at all. Designing with women does not just improve participation. It strengthens the systems meant to protect communities facing climate risk.

Download the book Climate Change Is a Human Problem to read Raya’s article and explore how behavioral insights can reshape climate solutions.
https://busara.global/our-works/climate-change-human-problem-voices-of-resilience/

Busara hosted People Powered and partners from the Democracy Narratives Alliance at our Nairobi office this week. It mar...
03/03/2026

Busara hosted People Powered and partners from the Democracy Narratives Alliance at our Nairobi office this week. It marked People Powered’s first visit to Africa as an organization, and we were proud to welcome them into our space.

The day focused on practical exchange. Colleagues from our Behavioural Science for Governance portfolio walked the delegation through tools and products designed to strengthen public participation and support institutions in giving citizens a voice.

One of the highlights was a hands-on session with the LCMT toolkit. The team explored how the toolkit helps practitioners diagnose local governance challenges, map behavioral barriers, and design context-specific strategies that move from intention to action. Rather than treating participation as a one-off activity, the discussion centered on building systems that enable sustained engagement.

Our guests also engaged with a range of Busara’s behavioral research products developed for the Global Majority. From governance diagnostics to behaviorally informed programme design, the conversations examined how evidence can translate into tools that civil society organizations and policymakers can actually use. Several CSOs joined the session to showcase how they apply these approaches in their own work, grounding the discussion in lived experience.

The visit also coincided with the release of two publications from our joint three-part research series with People Powered on democracy narratives and democratic behavior.

The research connects directly to what we explored in the room: how narratives, social context, capability, opportunity, and motivation shape whether people participate in democratic processes.
Two foundational publications are now live:
Democracy Narratives: What Are They and How Do They Matter for Democratic Engagement and Behavior?
https://busara.global/our-works/democracy-narratives-democratic-engagement-behavior/

From Narrative to Action: Fostering Democratic Engagement and Engaged Citizens Through Behaviour Change
https://busara.global/our-works/behavior-change-for-democratic-engagement-and-citizenship/

The third publication, the Research Brief How to Talk about Democracy: What We Know (and Don’t Know), will be launched at a global webinar:
Topic: Democracy Narratives: What works—and what doesn’t
Date March 24, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm UTC / 9:00 am EST/ 4:00 pm EAT
Register here for the webinar here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_p00CltIpTLygvBmAP1ZyFQ #/registration

Read the full the press release here:

https://busara.global/press-release/busara-joins-people-powered-democracy-narratives-alliance-dna/

Tafakari 2026: You are here: Humans and stormy times is Busara’s annual yearbook and a strategic pause in a fast-moving ...
17/02/2026

Tafakari 2026: You are here: Humans and stormy times is Busara’s annual yearbook and a strategic pause in a fast-moving world. This edition treats uncertainty as a system rather than a shock, and explores what it means for research, ethics, public participation, policy, finance, democracy, and digital life when stability can no longer be assumed.

Across its pages, one message holds steady: humans are still here, the work is still here, and clarity matters most when certainty is scarce.

Celebrating our Tafakari authors and their contributions:
Francis Meyo — Message from leadership
Ayo Adeloye — Holding steady when everything else moves: what we learned about our people, trust, and change
Emiliano Diaz Del Valle — Yes, things are uncertain, but that is also part of the system.
Patricia Omedo — From pages to people: Tales that connect, inspire, and reveal our shared humanity
Kawira Mungania — Putting the IS in crisIS: it is always around but can make us fly
Michael Onsando — The highest stakes game of all. Why the work must go on
Fadila Jumare — Let’s not waste it: how learning about food waste can help us deal with uncertainty.
Joel Wambua — Launching the Busara Scientific and Ethics Review Committee (BSERC): what if we asked the researched communities to judge if research on them is ethical?
Gitanksh Sethi — When times wobble, double down on getting the basics right: three unglamorous ideas for our work
Jaspreet Singh — Understanding People in 2025: A Guide to Research Methods for Uncertain Times
Robert Nyaga — Research that matters: The power of community-driven research
Brenda Ogutu — How to get humans on board for better policies? A public participation cheat sheet for policy makers
Mohammed Alhaji — Partnerships with donors can improve if we remember that donors are also people
Betty Syanda — Money still matters: future-proofing humans under climate stress through next-generation inclusive finance.
Raya Shatry — The development sector feels uncertain–has it misunderstood its own risk?
Hitha M — For the love of clicks. Thinking about attention and integrity in a dynamic digital age
Engy Saleh — Recommitting to community: learning from ESA Africa 2025 on how we go forward
Juhi Jain — The things that stay to ask the questions that emerge: Focusing on daily practices to manage uncertain futures
Laura Schun — Challenging resilience: the next big questions on how to read the signals
Mareike Schomerus and Gideon Too — Follow your heart: understanding new models of democracy

Each essay offers a different lens, but together they build a shared argument: impact in stormy times comes from judgment, participation, ethics, and decisions that survive real life constraints.

Download the full Tafakari 2026 yearbook here:
https://busara.global/our-works/tafakari-yearbook-2026/

On February 6, the launch of Climate change is a human problem: Finding the missing voices of climate resilience created...
10/02/2026

On February 6, the launch of Climate change is a human problem: Finding the missing voices of climate resilience created space for thoughtful engagement with the ideas in the book. Participants interacted with the publication, exchanged perspectives, and reflected on how behavioral science and systems thinking can inform more inclusive and effective climate responses.

The discussions underscored a shared understanding that evidence becomes most powerful when it connects directly to people and the contexts in which they make decisions.

Special thanks goes to all the researchers and practitioners who contributed their thinking, evidence, and time to this work namely, Juhi Jain, Rahab Kariuki, Laura Schun Geilager, Fadila Jumare, Jackline Chemtai Kapsukut, SCR®, Raya Shatry, Wairimu (Nimo) Muthike, Sanchayan Banerjee, Hendrik Bruns, Wanja Nyaga. ANutr, MSc, Berber Kramer, Tahira Mohamed Shariff, Maryam Anike Y. and to the wider Busara team, for carrying this project from an idea to a finished book

We extend our sincere thanks to everyone who joined us and contributed to the success of the launch. Special appreciation goes to our visitors during the book launch event. Your presence and engagement helped turn this launch into a meaningful moment of collective reflection.

The book is now live and free to download.
https://busara.global/our-works/climate-change-human-problem-voices-of-resilience/

This week, the Busara team attended a one-day NACOSTI stakeholder forum on the proposed review of research licensing fee...
29/01/2026

This week, the Busara team attended a one-day NACOSTI stakeholder forum on the proposed review of research licensing fees, following the attached invitation. The forum brought together researchers and institutions to discuss NACOSTI’s mandate under the Science, Technology and Innovation Act (2013), particularly its role in regulating, licensing, and monitoring research activities conducted in Kenya.

NACOSTI emphasized the legal requirement for all researchers to obtain a research license before commencing any study, and the importance of complying with national research laws, ethical guidelines, and reporting obligations. The presentations highlighted that ethical and compliant research strengthens scientific quality and ensures that research outputs are beneficial to communities and the country as a whole.

A key focus of the forum was the proposed review and possible increment of existing research licensing fees. NACOSTI explained that the review is intended to align fees with the cost of research regulation and oversight, and to support sustainability of the national research ecosystem.

It was further noted that part of the licensing fees may be channeled through the National Research Fund Kenya (NRF) to finance and support positive and impactful research in Kenya.

During the discussion, researchers emphasized the need to harmonize all research permitting processes to reduce the time required to obtain approvals. Participants noted that prolonged and fragmented permitting timelines can significantly delay studies, sometimes making time-bound research infeasible and leading to project cancellations. Stakeholders were invited to provide feedback to inform the finalization of the proposed fee changes.

25/01/2026

On January 24, 2025, a single political decision quietly upended decades of development work.

Within days, programs stalled, jobs disappeared, and long-standing partnerships were left hanging.
If you work anywhere near this sector, this moment likely changed how you think about stability, power, and dependency.

After 64 years, the world’s largest aid actor USAID froze operations, sending shockwaves far beyond Washington. For communities across Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the consequences were immediate and deeply personal.
What followed wasn’t just disruption, but a reckoning with how exposed many systems were to sudden political shifts.

The Work Is Not Done is an audio verbatim theatre with a collection of real stories. It takes the words of people who shared their thoughts in the immediate aftermath of the end of USAID, capturing how people across the development sector experienced this moment, in their own words.

They recorded these thoughts online, anonymously, in Busara’s Global Journal, where we asked people to simply tell us what was on their mind and how the end of USAID had affected them.

The full audio verbatim theatre of real stories is now live, and the submission form is open.
Listen here:
https://open.spotify.com/show/0uoOEBOTec9JEuUcFLV9QE?si=P2I4t_biSXS3amLgbfOj-g&nd=1&dlsi=0f4a98cd20714e7d

Special thanks to the voice artists from Busara and Pierre Englebert (Music composer). You can experience the full “Requiem for USAID” by Pierre Englebert on Soundcloud here:
https://soundcloud.com/pierre-englebert-music/requiem-for-usaid?ref=clipboard&p=i&c=0&si=882A3B19F34746C6B07518DAC9A2A804&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Children do not develop in isolation and neither should the programmes designed to support them. When we focus on only o...
21/01/2026

Children do not develop in isolation and neither should the programmes designed to support them. When we focus on only one generation, we miss the real engine of change: the family system.

In emergency and low-resource contexts, families face stacked pressures that no single-generation approach can absorb. That is why Busara, together with Global Schools Forum and Children in Crossfire, developed Thriving Together, a Dual-Generation Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Toolkit grounded in real field experience from Maedot and St Luke’s Hospital.

The toolkit translates lived insights into practical guidance for designing, measuring, and sustaining programmes that support young children and their caregivers as one interconnected unit.
From capturing children’s early learning, safety, and socio-emotional development to understanding caregiver wellbeing, stress, and capacity, the toolkit helps practitioners see the full picture of impact.

It also supports adaptive learning in complex and unstable environments, enabling programmes to evolve as family needs change rather than lock into static assumptions.
Stronger measurement leads to stronger programmes, and stronger programmes create nurturing environments where children can grow even under the most challenging conditions.

Explore the Thriving Together toolkit and start designing and measuring programmes that work across generations.
https://busara.global/our-works/thriving-together-dual-generation-programmes-emergency-mel-toolkit/

To learn more or discuss how to apply the toolkit in your context, contact Varsha Ashok at [email protected].

Address

Daykio Plaza, Ngong Lane
Nairobi
00100

Opening Hours

Monday 08:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 17:00
Thursday 08:00 - 17:00
Friday 08:00 - 13:00

Telephone

+254794628834

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Busara Center for Behavioral Economics posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Busara Center for Behavioral Economics:

Shortcuts

Share

Category