📌 In many development projects, we arrive with solutions. But what if the most effective answers are already there—within the communities we serve?
In this short interview, Hanif Shaik shares how the positive deviance approach reframes how we identify solutions: not by looking for what’s missing, but by discovering what’s already working.

He gives a compelling example from a nutrition project where a single father, simply by getting involved in his child’s care and taking them to growth monitoring sessions, became a positive deviant—someone doing things differently with better results.

Instead of imposing external solutions, the project identified dozens of these uncommon but effective local practices. By following just five simple steps, they could scale up what people were already doing right. This mindset shift—from need-based to asset-based—has wide implications across development cooperation.

🎥 Watch the video to hear:
– What defines a positive deviant
– Why causality in behavior change is complex but actionable
– How simple tools can help uncover effective local practices
– Why this approach is relevant across sectors

👉 Sometimes the best solutions are the ones we almost miss—because they don’t look like ours.

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🎥 This video was recorded during the 2025 SNRD Africa Conference in Lusaka