Research Stories & Methodological Reflections

Each project teaches us something new about conducting ethical, rigorous research in complex development contexts. These stories capture both successes and challenges in our ongoing work.

Bihar & Odisha, India

Co-designing MEL Frameworks with Women's Collectives

Sector: Women's Economic Empowerment Methods: Participatory Design, Mixed Methods Duration: 18 months

When we began evaluating a multi-state women's economic empowerment program, the existing monitoring framework was capturing outputs but missing the nuanced changes in women's agency and collective strength that participants valued most.

Key Innovations

  • Developed visual tracking tools that women's groups could use independently
  • Created peer-to-peer learning sessions where groups shared measurement approaches
  • Integrated traditional story-telling methods with quantitative tracking
  • Established monthly reflection circles that fed into program adaptation

The co-designed framework revealed that traditional indicators like "number of loans taken" missed critical dimensions of empowerment. Women's groups identified confidence in public speaking, ability to negotiate with officials, and changes in family decision-making as key outcomes.

Methodological Learning

Participatory MEL design requires significant upfront time investment but creates more accurate measurement and strengthens program outcomes. The measurement process became part of the intervention itself.

Jharkhand, India

Ethical Consent Processes with Adolescent Girls in SRHR Research

Sector: Sexual & Reproductive Health Methods: Ethnographic, Community-based Duration: 8 months

A reproductive health study in rural Jharkhand initially struggled with low participation rates and guarded responses from adolescent girls. Standard consent processes, developed for adult populations, were creating barriers rather than ensuring ethical participation.

Consent Process Redesign

  • Conducted community sessions to explain research goals in accessible language
  • Created visual consent materials that didn't require literacy
  • Established ongoing consent checks throughout the research process
  • Trained female community health workers as research intermediaries

Working with local women's groups, we redesigned consent as an ongoing conversation rather than a one-time transaction. This approach acknowledged that adolescents' comfort with sharing sensitive information evolved as relationships and trust developed.

Ethical Learning

Consent in sensitive research with young people requires cultural adaptation and relationship-building. One-size-fits-all ethical protocols can actually undermine both ethics and data quality.

Assam, India

Revealing Hidden Barriers Through Mixed Methods Integration

Sector: Maternal Health Methods: RCT + Ethnographic Integration Duration: 24 months

An RCT evaluating a maternal health intervention showed modest positive effects on service utilization. However, embedded qualitative research revealed that the quantitative findings masked significant variation in program effectiveness across different communities.

Hidden Patterns Revealed

  • Tea garden communities faced unique transportation barriers not captured in surveys
  • Ethnic minority women experienced language barriers with health providers
  • Seasonal migration patterns affected intervention timing and intensity
  • Traditional birth attendants played different roles across communities

In-depth interviews and ethnographic observation showed that the intervention worked well for some groups but was largely ineffective for marginalized communities. The aggregated impact estimates hid this crucial variation.

Mixed Methods Learning

Qualitative research embedded within experimental designs can reveal how and why interventions work differently across populations, leading to more effective and equitable program design.

Manipur, India

Community-Led Research in Conflict-Affected Areas

Sector: Displacement & Social Services Methods: Community-Based Participatory Research Duration: 12 months

Researching service access among internally displaced populations in Manipur required completely rethinking standard research protocols. Security concerns, trauma sensitivity, and complex ethnic dynamics made traditional data collection approaches both impossible and unethical.

Community-Led Approach

  • Partnered with local youth organizations as co-researchers
  • Conducted extensive cultural sensitivity and trauma-informed training
  • Developed research tools in multiple local languages
  • Created community feedback sessions throughout the research process

Rather than external researchers collecting data, we trained local youth groups to conduct interviews and focus groups within their own communities. This approach ensured cultural sensitivity, built local research capacity, and generated data that would have been impossible for outsiders to collect.

Security & Ethics Learning

In conflict-affected areas, community-led research approaches can be both more ethical and more methodologically rigorous than extractive research models. Local researchers understand contexts that outsiders cannot access.

Chittagong, Bangladesh

Photovoice with Climate Migrants in Urban Slums

Sector: Climate Migration & Urban Services Methods: Photovoice, Community Mapping Duration: 10 months

Understanding how climate migrants navigate urban service systems required methods that could capture both daily experiences and systemic barriers. Traditional surveys failed to convey the complexity of informal service provision and community adaptation strategies.

Participatory Documentation

  • Trained community members in photography and storytelling techniques
  • Created community exhibitions showcasing migrant experiences
  • Developed digital maps linking photos to specific service access points
  • Facilitated dialogue sessions between migrants and service providers

Participants documented their daily routes to access water, healthcare, and education, revealing intricate networks of informal service provision that official maps didn't capture. Photos and stories showed how community members had created innovative solutions to bureaucratic barriers.

Participatory Methods Learning

Visual methods can capture systemic issues that surveys miss while simultaneously building community advocacy capacity. The research process itself can become a tool for social change.

Lahore, Pakistan

Digital Data Collection During COVID-19 Restrictions

Sector: Education & Digital Learning Methods: Remote Mixed Methods Duration: 14 months

When pandemic restrictions made in-person data collection impossible, we had to rapidly adapt a planned evaluation of digital learning programs in low-income communities around Lahore. The challenge was maintaining research quality while ensuring ethical access across digital divides.

Digital Adaptation Strategies

  • Partnered with local organizations to provide phone and data access
  • Created audio-based surveys for participants with limited literacy
  • Developed WhatsApp-based focus group protocols
  • Trained community members as digital research facilitators

The shift to digital methods revealed new insights about how families were navigating digital education access. We discovered that phone sharing within households created different learning patterns than assumed, and that voice messages were often more accessible than text-based materials.

Digital Methods Learning

Digital data collection can improve accessibility for some populations while creating barriers for others. Hybrid approaches that offer multiple participation options tend to be most inclusive.