WFP launches digital platform on social behaviour change
The World Food Programme (WFP) in Ghana has launched a new digital loyalty platform to capture emergency preparedness and response to nutrition, food system and social protection.
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The digital loyalty platform, known as “Sesa”, is born out of WFP's vision to learn from the lessons of the programmes it had implemented on social behaviour change communication in line with the country’s strategic plan.
Significance
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Country Director of WFP, Barbara Clemens, said that the programme, through the platform, aimed to use social behaviour change communication to sustainably change the behaviour of the public on food nutrition and healthy living.
“In the past, we were bombarding people with messaging and encouraging them through incentives where they were given resources for a specific period of time. This worked in humanitarian settings temporarily,” she said.
Ms Clemens added that the adoption of the ‘Sesa’ platform was solution-driven to operate a social behaviour change process whether the WFP was running a programme or not, and to also observe how the government was working in line with the initiative.
“We also want to operate a social behaviour change process where we will be looking at initiatives that the government is undertaking. “One of such initiatives is digitisation, which expects the UN to deliver its programme in a transformative way.
“They also expect us to achieve maximum impact from going from a finite number of beneficiaries to all people living in Ghana. That’s a huge prospect,” she added.
Opportunities
Ms Clemens further said that the platform incorporated what worked well in the country and offered credit points for buying and consuming healthy foods. “We took what works well in Ghana and combined it with a concept on the platform such that if you go to a grocery store or market stall, and you buy and consume healthy foods, we would give you credits to be redeemed at some partnering institutions,” she said.
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The country director said that the WFP presence in the country had been at the behest of the government with a mandate “to assist in identifying challenges, closing gaps and eliminating overlaps which the Sesa platform intended to address.
She also said that WFP’s mandate of zero hunger and partnerships would implement a programme to maximise its role of convening strong partnerships.
Solutions
Ms Clemens further said that the loyalty platform had the potential to create durable solutions as it was birthed in the context which worked for Ghanaians. “The loyalty platform has the potential to create durable solutions, that is the bedrock of this platform,” she said.
The country director, therefore, urged Ghanaians to embrace the Sesa digital loyalty platform to help initiate a social behaviour change, especially for healthy living by buying and consuming healthy foods and scoring credit points.