Research & Policy Analysis
Rigorous, evidence-based research and policy briefs: the foundation everything else at the Institute is built on.
What we mean by research
Producing rigorous, evidence-based research and policy briefs that hold up to scrutiny: the foundation everything else is built on.
Too much excellent research sits unread on shelves, while too many policies are written without any evidence behind them at all. Our work is designed against that: we research what is actually happening on the ground, then translate it into guidance short enough to be read and specific enough to be acted on.
How we work
Field research, administrative data, and interviews with the people a policy actually reaches.
Rigorous analysis, checked against the standard we ask of others, including review by our Technical Advisory Committee.
A short, citable brief with named authors, a date and a clear recommendation. Long enough to be credible, short enough to be read.
Carried directly to the ministries, agencies and committees with the power to act, and held over time, not delivered once.
Our focus
Prioritised progressively, beginning where evidence, partnership and political will already show the greatest readiness for change.
How public money is raised, allocated and spent, and whether budget lines reach women and men differently. Covers budget analysis at federal and state level, gender-responsive budgeting inside MDAs, and public financial management.
The barriers to women standing for and holding elected and appointed office: party structures, candidate selection, the cost of contesting, and the design of measures intended to widen representation.
The adequacy of legal frameworks, referral pathways, funding and service provision, and what actually happens between a report being made and a case reaching resolution.
Retention and transition through schooling, the cost barriers that take girls and boys out of classrooms, and how skills policy connects, or fails to connect, to the work women actually do.
Whether gender commitments survive contact with the civil service: staffing and appraisal, procurement, service delivery, and the everyday routines through which policy is implemented.
Where customary authority and statutory law meet, and how questions of inheritance, marriage and land are negotiated in practice, including with the institutions that hold local legitimacy.
Access to primary and maternal health services, the distance between a policy entitlement and the reality at the clinic, and how reproductive health is financed.
Men and boys as participants in gender reform rather than an afterthought to it, covering norms, caregiving, and workplace culture.
What has been tried elsewhere in West Africa and across the continent, what transferred, and what did not, so that Nigerian policy is not designed from scratch each time.
What we publish
Short, citable analysis with a clear recommendation for decision-makers.
In preparationFull-length studies with methodology, data and findings.
In preparationWork in progress, circulated for comment ahead of publication.
PlannedMultidisciplinary, peer-reviewed. Volume 1, Number 1, September 2026.
Open for submissionsAccountability to partners, funders and the public.
Scheduled 2027Nothing is published without them.
Work with us
We work with ministries, agencies, development partners and universities on commissioned research, joint studies and data collaborations. If you have a policy question that needs evidence behind it, we would like to hear it.
