Project Context

• There are 6 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela worldwide, with 5 million residing in Latin America and the Caribbean Region.

• Brazil hosts approximately 426,000 Venezuelan migrants, asylum seekers, or refugees, making them the largest migrant group in the country.

• Additionally, the Venezuelan indigenous refugee and migrant population in Brazil, face specific challenges in accessing public services due to structural, cultural and language barriers.

The Challenge

• Despite the availability of government resources and programs directed at the refugee population in Brazil, these remain underutilized by Venezuelan refugees and migrants, significantly impacting their use of education, formal employment, and social protection services in the country.

• To improve the access of Venezuelan refugees and migrants to the services provided by UNHCR, and other partner organizations, MAGENTA designed an SBC communications strategy that aims to address disinformation and provide migrants and refugees more opportunities to integrate into the community. We focused on 4 sectors: Education, Access to Documentation, Protection, and Livelihoods. The strategy was informed by a highly participatory co-design approach with UNHCR and its stakeholders, in addition to key informant interviews with service delivery officials.

The Objectives

This project aimed at promoting Venezuelan refugees and migrants’ uptake of public services through the design of a Social and Behavioural Change Communications Strategy. The SBCC Strategy was developed to promote the following behavioural outcomes and address their related barriers:

Methodology – Behavioural Drivers Model

The conceptual framework for this research was the Behavioral Drivers Model (BDM). The BDM analyzes the factors that influence people’s behaviour on three levels:

• Psychological: internal factors that persuade specific conduct at an individual level. It includes knowledge, attitudes, values, interests, beliefs, self-efficacy, and cognitive biases.

• Sociological: factors related to the way a person interacts with their peers or the people that make up their reference network. At this level, social norms, gender norms, power dynamics, attitudes, and community practices are studied.

• Environmental: factors related to an individual’s environment, including public policy, governmental and institutional structures, and the communication environment that they are exposed to.

The BDM model was used to inform the whole research process from the development of the objectives and lines of inquiry to the development of the data collection tools. The BDM supported the thematic analysis and allowed the provision of behavioural insights.

What We Did

MAGENTA designed a Social and Behavioural Change Communications Strategy rooted in behavioural insights, aimed at addressing the underutilisation of services and improving the access of Venezuelan refugees to available services.

We recognise that the barriers faced by refugees and migrants may vary depending on a range of factors, and in particular their length of stay in Brazil, and these dictate their mindset, their needs, their location, and the channels they use to communicate. Therefore, the Strategy was designed through Journey Milestones to structure the type of communications and channels used at each point of their journey. Each Milestone promotes a behaviour and MAGENTA proposed activities to be implemented.

How we did it

The following diagram shows the different phases of the Strategy Development Process:

Impact

This 3-year Social and Behaviour Change Communications (SBCC) Strategy aims to significantly improve and enhance the access of refugees and migrants to public services in Brazil, by reducing behavioural barriers through targeted communications and awareness activities. Ultimately, the successful implementation of this SBCC strategy contributes to the overall well-being and social integration of migrants and refugees.