The Policy Innovation Centre (PIC) is the first national
institutionalized behavioral initiative in Africa supporting
government and stakeholders to make behaviorally
informed decisions and generate evidence for impact
driven interventions in critical thematic areas. The PIC
is an initiative of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group
(NESG), a leading think tank in Africa redefining evidence
based policy advocacy. In 2017, the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation (BMGF) provided funding to establish
the ‘interim Policy Innovation Unit (PIU)” as a proof of
concept to assess whether a behavioural insights (BI)
unit could work in the Nigerian context to improve public
sector outcomes. Based on the demonstrated success,
the PIC was launched in October 2021 to deepen the
impact of social interventions in Nigeria.
The complexity of issues faced by most countries is
increasingly inter-related and dynamic. Policies and
Interventions must be human centered, realistic and
connect the often multi-faceted nature of the needs and
challenges people face in their everyday lives. The PIC is
positioned to support the delivery of better policies and
innovative solutions for high impact interventions across
Africa.