Standards and ethics

Every study follows a written protocol, agreed with you before fieldwork begins: the design, the sample, the instruments, and how each stage is checked. We follow the ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research, the standard self-regulatory code for research ethics, first published in 1948 and maintained jointly by the International Chamber of Commerce and ESOMAR since 1977.

Taking part is always free, and always informed. Before anyone answers a question, our fieldworkers explain who we are, what the study is for, how long it takes, and that they can skip any question or stop at any time, in a language they choose. Nobody is paid, pressured or misled into taking part. Our Verify page lets anyone check that a survey claiming to be ours is genuine, before they answer.

Our fieldworkers are trained to recognise when someone may be at risk, and to refer them to help rather than intervene themselves. We hold to a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, following the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's core principles, the standard UN agencies and their partners are held to. Before fieldwork starts in any area, we map the health, protection and support services there and agree a referral route with them. Fieldwork does not start until that route is in place, and the contacts are written on the consent form.

We apply Nigeria's Data Protection Act 2023 and its General Application and Implementation Directive, which took effect in September 2025, to everyone we collect data from or about, not only to users of this website. You can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, and complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission if we get it wrong. Our privacy notice sets out the detail.

Scope, data access and publication terms are agreed in writing before fieldwork starts. We report findings whichever way they point, and we do not take a position on a policy choice. Where we have a conflict of interest — including where we have delivered, funded or advised on the programme being studied — we say so in our first reply, and may decline. This follows the independence and impartiality norms UN evaluation offices set for their own evaluators.

Every study is piloted before it runs at scale. A supervisor back-checks a sample of interviews while fieldwork is still running, not only afterward, so problems are caught while they can still be fixed. A second person reviews the analysis code before results are reported. Every headline figure states its sample size, and, for survey estimates, its margin of error.

Tell us if something we did, or someone working for us, fell short of this page. Write to enquiries@probatioafrica.com. A named person outside the study team reviews every complaint, and replies within ten working days. If you are not satisfied with our reply, you can take it further: to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission for anything about your personal data, or to the research ethics committee that approved the study, named on your consent form, for anything about how a study was run.