UNDP
Ghana
UNDP Ghana is using personas, such as Eco-Conscious Kofi, Maybe Mansa, and Just-Passing Ama, to better understand and appeal to people’s recycling behaviours. Using an information-based intervention, they assessed the extent to which attractive, localised nudges appealing to social norms and cognitive dissonance can drive behaviour change in the Ghanaian context. The focus was on shifting people from being a Just-passing Ama to a Maybe Mansa or better still an Eco-conscious Kofi or Eco-conscious Ama. Through semi-structured interviews, data analysis and observation, UNDP tracked volumes of plastic deposited at community-recycling locations, as well as perceptions of existing and potential users of the recycling service. The information intervention took the form of small billboards placed near the community-recycling bins in 2 different communities (East-Legon and Osu) in Accra. The experiment has been successful with an average 18% increase in plastics collected over a 6-week period. From a baseline of approximately 55kg per week, consumers are now depositing an average of 65kg of recyclable plastic every week, to the extent that the bins are often full, and the excess plastic has to be bagged separately. The experiment also tracked recycling rates at similar community-recycling locations across Accra as a control. Comparative analysis confirmed the positive impact of the intervention.