Data has a demand problem

When pharmaceutical companies use their research to identify new life saving drugs, they don’t simply manufacture millions of doses and then stack them in a warehouse and wait for sick patients to find them. Instead, they launch a carefully developed marketing plan that includes advertising the drug to the people who could most benefit and sending representatives into hospitals and medical offices to teach doctors which patients can benefit most and how to prescribe the drug. They create a demand that matches their supply.

The International Labour Organization Fundamentals branch produces reports that could be as life-saving as any pharmaceutical breakthrough. The ILO relies on the importance and effectiveness of research reports and tools to engage decision makers in the work of ending forced labour and child labour. The ILO is recognized as the leading source of global labour market research and data, and the reports it releases are comprehensive and filled with data that document the extent and forms of child labour and forced labour.

There are opportunities to increase the impact of the ILO’s research by creating a demand for your product–applying principles of human-centered design and insights from behavioural science. This guide will help you develop research products that drive action against forced and child labour. It offers specific guidance for developing a strategy and products that engage key communities and decision makers and draws on insights from social, behavior and cognitive science, as well as human-centered design and systems thinking that help us understand how people learn, and what motivates them to act. The guide will help you identify the change you’re trying to make, who you’re creating reports for, which formats will be most effective, and how factors like voice, content, length and visual elements can make these reports more useful in the context of decision-making that leads to an end to forced labour and child labour.

Effective communication for social change requires change agents like you to make deliberate choices about your goals and who you’re hoping to reach. It is also true that achieving specific goals requires reaching people with unique and specific worldviews, identities, and moral values. The tool includes a set of questions to help you identify specific mindsets.

Credible data can help leaders and activists understand the scope of a problem, and help them establish credibility with others whose support they need to make change. But data alone won’t make changes in the systems that lead to child labour and forced labour. Abundant research shows that people rarely make decisions based on data. People act when they care and know what to do to address a problem. Your reports will need to include specific, meaningful recommendations for how to overcome these challenges, and convey that the problem has solutions. It is critical that reports include not only compelling and credible data, but also actionable recommendations that are within their power.

This guide offers a ten-step approach to help you develop reports and resources to help those positioned to make decisions that end forced labour and child labour. Each section includes worksheets, tutorials, templates and examples that can help you and your colleagues ensure that research delivers on its potential to drive lasting change.

An important note is that while it’s important to begin with Step 1 and complete each step in sequence, you will gain insights throughout the process. When that happens, you’ll want to revisit the steps you’ve completed to ensure you’ve captured fresh insights. In that way, the guide is both linear and iterative.

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