Designing for sustainable outcomes: Espousing behavioural change into co-production programmes

Abstract

This paper uses a policy design perspective with which to examine the formulation of programmes that are based on the concept of co-production. In doing so, the paper reviews essential literature on policy design and co-production to identify that a limited focus on outcomes and specifically how behavioural change can make these outcomes sustainable represents a major gap in the current discussion of co-production. We firstly argue that in designing programmes involving co-production, outcomes need to be considered at the initial design stages where broad policy objectives are being defined. Secondly, we argue that for these outcomes to be sustainable, behavioural change on the part of policy targets needs to be an important objective of a coproduction programme. To illustrate our point, we use the example of rural sanitation programmes from three developing countries to specifically demonstrate how the absence or inclusion of behavioural change considerations in the early phases of policy design can elicit different levels of success in achieving desired policy outcomes.