Who are you, and what do you need to know?
Four ways in, because a ministry, a donor, a programme team and a researcher ask different things of the same evidence.
Government
Ministries, agencies and state and local governments.
What you ask
- Are budgeted funds released, and do they reach facilities?
- How many children are out of school in each state and local government area, and what would it take to bring them in?
- Does the register reflect poverty after the 2023 to 2025 price shocks?
How we help
- Answers at the level you govern: national, state or local government area.
- Numbers you can defend, each with a source and a date.
- Plain-language findings for people who don’t read reports.
What you receive
- A short brief for decision-makers and an end report with its limits on one page.
- Findings split by sex, age, disability and place.
- An anonymised dataset where consent and contracts allow.
Send the decision, the state or states and the date. If your ministry has procurement rules, tell us which apply, and we will work within them, whether that is a direct commission, a memorandum of understanding or a framework agreement.
Donors and partners
Bilateral and multilateral agencies, foundations and development partners.
What you ask
- Can reported results be verified independently?
- Can we verify delivery in areas we cannot reach?
- Which foundational learning approach gives the largest gain per naira or dollar at scale?
How we help
- Independent verification, evaluation and learning.
- Standards you can audit: an ethics decision, a data protection assessment and a referral pathway before first contact.
- Work to your evaluation policy, including the OECD DAC criteria and UNEG report standards.
What you receive
- A written protocol you approve before fieldwork.
- Progress updates and the results of the field checks while the study runs.
- A conflict-of-interest declaration and a safeguarding statement with every proposal.
If you have a terms of reference, send it. We can answer a call for proposals, take a direct commission or work as a subcontractor to a lead firm. We declare any conflict in our first reply.
Implementers
NGOs, programme teams and social enterprises.
What you ask
- Can you help us learn and prove what works without slowing delivery?
- Which of our activities should we test before we scale them?
- How do we set up monitoring that our teams will actually use?
How we help
- Lighter studies that fit inside your delivery calendar: rapid feedback, process reviews, monitoring design.
- A plain list of what a rapid study leaves out.
- Independence: we do not run your programme, so your funder can trust our findings.
What you receive
- Findings in time for your next decision.
- A monitoring framework your team can run without us, and training to use it.
- Results for the groups your funder asks about.
Tell us the decision your next milestone depends on, and the date. We will say which study fits, and which would be too much.
Researchers
Universities, research institutes and international teams working in Nigeria.
What you ask
- Is the method sound, and can I reuse the data or instruments?
- Can we partner on a study in Nigeria?
- Who would do the fieldwork, and under what ethics approval?
How we help
- Local design, ethics route and instrument adaptation, including translation and pretesting.
- Open methods: protocols and analysis plans registered for causal studies, and instruments shared where licences allow.
- Fieldwork by our own trained teams, and one named lead for data handling, agreed in writing.
What you receive
- A written statement of who does what, the ethics route and how data are handled.
- A documented pilot and a field-quality report.
- Data-sharing terms in writing before fieldwork. Our default: the anonymised dataset and instruments are shared after publication, where consent and the contract allow.
Write to enquiries@probatioafrica.com with your design, your funder and your timeline. Or use the form and choose “University or research institute”.
How can you engage us?
Four routes. Pick the one your organisation already uses.
Direct commission
You tell us the decision, and we write a proposal. Suits a single study you can commission without a competition.
What we need from you: The brief, and your commissioning rules.
A call for proposals
You publish a terms of reference and we answer it in your format, and by your deadline.
What we need from you: The terms of reference and the scoring criteria.
Partner or subcontractor
A lead firm or programme holds the contract and we deliver defined parts: design, fieldwork, analysis. We name our part, and the lead names theirs.
What we need from you: A short scope, and who holds the data.
A standing agreement
A framework or long-term agreement for repeat studies.
What we need from you: The framework terms.
What we send with a proposal
Ask for any of these at any time.
- Our CAC certificate of registration and our tax clearance certificate
- Our ethics, data protection and safeguarding policies
- The team’s curricula vitae
- A conflict-of-interest declaration
- References from past clients, where the client agrees
What can you expect from us?
A named person.
Every brief gets a reply from someone with a name and a role, within two working days.
A written proposal.
Methods, timeline and budget, with what is in and what is out.
Terms in writing.
Scope, data ownership, access and publication terms agreed before fieldwork.
A conflict declaration.
We tell you at the start if we have a stake in the answer.
Progress you can see.
An update every week during fieldwork and at every milestone, with the results of the field checks, not only a report at the end.
A straight answer.
If a study won’t help, we say so, and say who is better placed.
Not sure which door is yours?
Start with the brief and choose “Other”. We will point you to the right route.