Naturally, there have been mixed reactions to this intervention. On the one hand, some saw it as an encroachment on Nigeria’s sovereignty which might have potential unintended consequences for both Nigeria and the US down the line. On the other hand, many welcomed it as a decisive step towards ending religious persecution and other forms of violence in northern and central Nigeria.

Much of the conversation online about the US military intervention in Nigeria has been dominated by social media discourse and global media narratives which often frame these issues through partisan or global politics lenses rather than through the perspectives of ordinary, everyday Nigerians. This study is an attempt to change that by centering Nigerian voices in this debate.

Measuring Nigerians’ Demand for US Military Intervention

Following reports of the proposed intervention in November 2025, our team at PROMISE Labs Africa immediately got to work. We designed a short survey presenting 10 different likelihoods of successful suppression of regional violence in Nigeria on account of US military intervention. The likelihoods ranged from ‘Certain’ (100%) to ‘Impossible’ (0%) and were arranged in descending order in the survey.

The bar chart below aggregates the pattern of responses we got from 106 Nigerians who completed the survey:

Here’s the same data presented as a demand curve which makes it a bit easier to analyze:

As you might expect, at higher likelihoods of success, many participants say ‘Yes’ and as the likelihoods decrease, more participants start to say ‘No’. We can also see the vertical dashed P50 line which, in this analysis, we are using as a proxy for measuring how much this group of participants will tolerate US military intervention even as the likelihood of its success drops.

Three quick observations based on Figure 1 and 2:

First, you can see how there was a marginally higher proportion saying ‘Yes’ to ‘Very Likely’ and ‘Probable’. Some of this can be explained by the small proportion of respondents who were inattentive and were just selecting haphazardly. However, as we would soon see from the interviews we conducted, some of the participants actually had rationalizations for selecting ‘No’ at ‘Certain’ and ‘Almost Certain’ before starting to select ‘Yes’.

Secondly, you may be surprised that even at 100% likelihood of success, the proportion of respondents supporting US military intervention in Nigeria never reached 100%. This is because a good number (about 18% of our respondents, mostly resident in northern Nigeria) rejected the US military intervention at ALL likelihoods of success. We’ll meet a few of them in the interviews we conducted.

Thirdly, even at extremely low likelihoods of success, we had a subset of our respondents still supporting US military intervention. These were from those participants (about 16% of our respondents, ALSO mostly resident in northern Nigeria) who accepted the US intervention at ALL likelihoods of success. We’ll also meet a few of them in a bit.

Before we see what individual participants had to say about their demand for US military intervention in Nigeria, let’s first break the survey data down by demographic group.

Subgroup Analysis of Our Sample

Here’s what we found from the subgroup aggregates:

Age: The older participants seemed more tolerant of an unsuccessful intervention (P50 = 10.65%) compared to the younger participants (P50 = 25.15%). Also note how the curve for the older subgroup is consistently higher than that of the younger subgroup at all likelihood levels. This may be expected at higher likelihoods of success but is definitely surprising at the lower likelihoods. Older people tend to be risk averse and supportive of outcomes that are certain. You would also expect older people to have a lower demand because they should be able to recall stories of past US military intervention in other countries that went sideways. Yet, the response patterns of older people in this study suggests that the regional violence in Nigeria may be so salient in the minds of the older respondents to the point that it is changing their risk profile.

Gender: At high likelihoods of success, female participants appear to have a higher demand than males. However, as the likelihood of successful outcomes start dipping, female demand also tanks more sharply. Note how the two curves cross at lower likelihoods of success leading to male participants having a lower P50 of 13.71% compared to females’ P50 of 26.61%. This observation may reflect men’s general tendency towards risk seeking. It is also possible it’s just an artifact of our sample composition (about 67% male respondents).

Region of residence: Most of the violence we hear about in the news is taking place in the northern part of Nigeria. So it was really interesting that at higher likelihoods of success, southern residents (about 39% of the respondents) had a higher demand than northern residents. That said, at lower likelihoods of success, the curves cross with northern residents having a P50 of 14.15% compared to the southerners’ P50 of 28.75%. This pattern mirrors the age observation – when you are in a dire situation, you are more open to uncertain outcomes if it has the most remote chance of making things better. Northern residents are closer to the violence and seem willing to tolerate an intervention with remote chances of succeeding.

Trust in the Nigerian and US governments: This is straightforward – there seems to be some overlap between those who have a high trust in the US government (about 50% of our sample) and those who have a low trust in the Nigerian government (about 59% of our sample). Hence it is not too surprising that the demand curves show that those with high trust in the US (P50 = 10.26%) and low trust in Nigeria (P50 = 17.54%) were more tolerant of a US military intervention with remote chances of succeeding than those who have high trust in the Nigerian government and low trust in the US government.

Religion: Religion plays a big part in the day-to-day lives of Nigerians, so, it was a bit difficult to split our participants into ‘high religiosity’ and ‘low religiosity’. We pulled it off by categorizing only those in the bottom 25% of perceived personal religiosity as ‘low’ (about one-third of respondents) and all others as ‘high’. That said, it was quite interesting that those in the low religiosity subgroup had higher demand for US military intervention at all likelihood levels. They were also more tolerant of a US military intervention with remote chances of succeeding (Low religiosity P50 = 9.68% vs High religiosity P50 = 25.47%). Perhaps the high religiosity subgroup do not think it is responsible to support a US military intervention if it is clear from the onset that it has a small chance of succeeding. Yet, that may only explain the differing P50s but not the lower demand found in the high religiosity subgroup at all levels.

Insights from Nigerian Interviews

We anticipated that demand would vary with the characteristics of the different participants in our sample. However, we wanted to find out if there were other factors at play that we hadn’t considered in our survey.

To get to the root of this, we asked those who had completed our survey if they were interested in being interviewed. We got an overwhelming response, and consequently, because of capacity, we invited 12 people (2 from each of Nigeria’s 6 geopolitical zones) to be interviewed. Because a couple of weeks had passed since the initial study, our team had these 12 participants take the same short survey again before we started asking them to share the rationale behind their choices.

Before we go over their responses, the figure below shows the response pattern of the 12 participants we interviewed.

First, let’s address the weirder demand patterns from the figure above. Participants 2, 3, 5, and to a smaller extent, 12, responded in an inconsistent manner. On a first glance, it might appear as though they either didn’t understand the survey, or were just inattentively responding to it haphazardly. However, our conversations with them revealed more nuance:

Participant 2 seemed to have interpreted the survey as asking about broad support for US military intervention, rather than support conditional on a range of likelihoods of successful outcomes from said intervention. When probed about his response, he said: “At 50%, an even chance, I will not support a full US military intervention because the outcome is uncertain, and I do not believe foreign intervention is the right solution for the interreligious violence. I only support limited US cooperation to help fight banditry and Boko Haram, not a broad intervention. ”

Participant 3 also seemed to have misinterpreted the survey, which is at least partly responsible for the haphazard vacillation between ‘Yes’ and ’No’ throughout all the likelihood options presented. When probed, she said: “Okay, I supported 97% likelihood of successful outcomes actually. But, you know...the system of politics in the country is different. I’m not really…politically inclined, but I still feel like whatever the Nigerian government decides on will stand. I’ve said what I feel about the US military intervention…maybe ignorantly, or based on how I feel about it, but then politically it might not be that same way.”

Participant 5’s single ‘Yes’ appears to be due to inattention. When probed, she said: “I rejected it completely; I see no reason that another country will enter our country to solve our own problem…This is our country, and the people living here are the ones that know our problem – even the criminals that are doing all these things, we are the ones that know them. When another country intervenes in our country, I do not think they can differentiate between the people giving us this problem and the people of the country. It is only the people living in that settlement or area that can differentiate between the original Fulani and the criminals.”

Participant 12 responded ‘No’ to the first three likelihoods of success. This was an intentional decision. Here’s the response provided when probed: “How sure are we that the US will only focus on the bandits or the kidnappers, and all those hoodlums that are committing all these atrocities? How are we sure? But we know that with the US technical capabilities, yes, they can attain 70% likelihood of successful outcomes. That is why I abandoned all higher likelihoods of success in the survey and started with 70%.”

Nigerians’ Thoughts on the Actual Root Cause of Violence

We wanted to find out if participants thought the killings going on in northern and central Nigeria were accurately framed as ‘inter-religious violence’, or if there was something else going on.

Religious Factors

Christian respondents (Participants 4, 8, 10 and 11) were quite confident that the regional violence in Nigeria had religious undertones. Participant 11 stated: “The aim of the perpetrators of regional violence is the same thing…just like Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations….This is about targeting the Christians. Sometimes, they make people feel as if it is not what it is….It was not just about the herders and the farmers. It is about facing the community dominated by the Christians – killing them…. If the violence is not because of religion, why are they shouting “Allah Akbar” before they kill Christians?”

Participant 8 acknowledged the complexity of the situation, noting: “Religion is a major player in this whole violence. However, it is a multi-headed beast, with other issues such as politics, tribalism, and people using regional violence as a cover for illegal mining and weaponry trade...But the real driving motive is still the fact that they think: ‘You are an infidel…I have been given this land, I have the power to overcome you, and I can destroy you and your people.’”

Muslim respondents (Participants 1, 2 and 5) largely rejected the religious framing of the violence. Participant 1 argued that the problem was governance, not religion: “The problem we have in this country is bad leadership; that is just the only thing we have in this country... If not, we have what it takes to fix this country….There are some leaders in this country that they are hiding under the umbrella of these religions….If not, Muslims and Christians are just like one in the country.”

Participant 2 identified deeper structural issues with religion only playing a mobilizing force, noting: “Even though people call it interreligious violence, the complaint is not truly about Islam and Christianity. Instead, it is often caused by non-religious factors such as…struggles over farm land, grazing roads, and water, climate change, reducing land availability, and competition for resources. And there is ethnic identity differences: Fulani versus non-Fulani communities, Hausas versus other ethnic groups. Religion is only used as a lever. The real issues are ethnic and social. There is also political manipulation. Politicians use religion to mobilize supporters. They turn local disputes into Muslim versus Christian to gain power, you understand?”

Participant 5 attributed the violence to illiteracy, saying: “This violence is not related to religion or any other thing like that, because when these people doing this violence come out to carry out their operation, they are not considering any religion, they are not checking to see if this group is Christian or Muslim….They do not care about any religion; they touch everyone, they kill everyone….One of the major reasons for this is illiteracy. Because there is no way a literate person will start killing people without any strong reason.”

Multiple respondents (Participants 3, 9 and 12), for their part, believed the regional violence is intentionally sustained by the elite for economic and/or political gain. Participant 9 explained: “There are some elites in the North that are using regional violence as a source of income, and there are some political people using it as a source of achieving their aim in the system. So, that’s the truth. There are some people benefitting from it whether you like it not; there some people using it as an arm for themselves to succeed or to key into the system”

Participant 3 shared the same sentiment about political actors benefiting from prolonged instability: “I feel like it’s an interreligious violence…and there’s a political something attached to it….Politicians in this country can just do and undo…Whenever there is a high rate of insecurity in the country, they tend to gain more and make money from it. So, this regional violence can also be as a result of the politicians using the perpetrators to cause chaos in the country, and after that, they are earning from it.”

When we probed further about the structural/infrastructural contributors to the regional violence, respondents had mixed opinions:

Population Growth

On population growth, Participant 1 connected high birth rates with vulnerability to radicalization: “Actually, being a Muslim, you are entitled to four wives. But it is not mandatory... And what we now understand in the far north is that most of them, they get married to two, three, four wives and have a lot of kids, which they can’t even feed, talk more of their education…How do you feel like if your father gave birth to you, and maybe you people are maybe 10 or 15 children in total. Your father did not take you to any primary school... you grew up in the street, fending for yourself daily... And you got someone that took you into a hotel room and says, ‘Okay, I will give you five million naira. This is a time bomb. Go to so-so location and bomb yourself with it.’ Does that person have an option? He doesn’t even know the implications... To him, his life is useless.”

However, other participants disagreed with the idea of population size as a contributor to regional violence. Participant 4 questioned the premise, stating: “Show me the statistics supporting the claim that northern Nigeria is increasing in number. No, I do not think the increase in population has anything to do with the increase in violence.” Participant 9 also argued that the problem was elite leadership, and not population: “It is not the increase in population that increased the violence. It is the elites in the North that are supposed to enlighten their people and lead them. There is one thing about the North: whatever the elites want them to do, that is what they are doing. The increase is not what causes the problem at all. They have the land mass that can accommodate them.”

Climate and Environmental Stressors

The contribution of climatic and environmental factors also divided opinions. Participant 8, for instance, acknowledged climate pressures in northern Nigeria while also emphasizing the need to adapt: “We can’t deny the fact that climate change is happening, and there is an increase in population and migration... However, as things and times are changing, you don’t keep alien practices due to climate change. If what you have been doing is pasture rearing, moving from place to place, forest to forest, everybody knows that the modern farming method for cattle rearing is to have ranches... Ranching is going to solve the farmer-herders’ clash”

Participant 7 also saw environmental stressors creating conditions for regional violence: “I think environmental factors influence violence because there is usually unrest when there are environmental issues.… When people are looking for a water source and what not, it could result in stealing which, in turn, results in different forms of violence….These environmental issues also lead to low produce output, and then it will definitely lead to stealing. And that can be a form of violence that can cause unrest in the communities there.”

However many respondents rejected environmental conditions as a factor contributing to violence. Participant 5 noted: “To me, that’s not true that environmental factors lead to violence. Because this is not the first time we have been facing this shortage of rainfall. This is something natural. During the olden days when we faced this kind of shortage of rainfall problem, nothing like this regional violence happened.” Participant 4 compared Nigeria to other geographical regions with similar environmental conditions: “I’m part of those people that do not believe that climate change has anything to do with the violence that we are seeing in northern Nigeria... So, if we are seeing such violence in northern Nigeria, why are we not seeing other countries around northern Africa also having this same problem? Why is climate change, desertification, and the rest not causing northern African countries to have the same issue as we do in Nigeria. So, that is not a reason. And besides…it is not that people are moving to settle somewhere or killing people because of the resources that those people have. Rather, we see mostly ethnic cleansing and religious attacks, so it has nothing to do with climate change”

Nigerians’ Stance on US military intervention

Two interviewees provided unconditional support for US military intervention in Nigeria. Both were Christians from northeastern Nigeria where much of the regional violence takes place. Participant 10 said: “It would be great if the US can help us stop this violence by coming to Nigeria. There are many groups in Nigeria that are willing to finish all the Christians in the entire nation or entire region. Like these bandits, Boko Haram, they are all there. They are hunting believers, hunting them like animals. I lost one of my closest brothers, the same mother, the same father. They killed him. It was a Fulani herdsman. They killed him just for nothing. He had a family. All those things that we are seeing are happening in real life. Seriously, this is a very sad situation.” Participant 11 also expressed desperation for outside help, saying: “Looking at the security problem we have, most especially in the northern parts of Nigeria, it has not been easy for everyone who stays in the northern part of Nigeria. We are facing a crisis, and we have cried and cried. No one heard our voice. They will only come and make promises, and in the end, nothing will be done. People are dying every day. We’ve lost confidence in our securities. Our local vigilantes are not strong enough to protect us. We rely on prayers and also rely on God. When we heard the news or rumors of the US intervening, it was like heaven on earth to us.”

Some respondents supported the intervention conditionally, switching from ‘Yes’ to ’No’ as the likelihood of successful outcomes dropped. Participant 12 noted: “If we are to call a spade a spade, people whom the US has come to their aid have not recorded being helped without offering more to the US…We know the state of Libya today. Help was promised to them, and all of that. Even if we look at the US military intervention as a religious matter, that they are coming with the aim of helping the Christians, a concrete agreement should be drawn. Both sides should go to the drawing board and define: this is what we want from you, and this is what we are giving in return. Let it not be on a platter of gold that we are thinking that they are coming to help a country just like that....As the saying goes, nothing goes for nothing.” Participant 6 provided conditional support for other reasons: “Well, I know the country that I am in. I know Nigeria as a whole might not want the intervention. But as a first thing, I believe that the intervention will really help.”

Two interviewees, both Muslims from northern Nigeria, rejected any form of US military intervention. Participant 1 feared the consequences: “I rejected everything. I’ll never support the intervention of a foreign country coming to Nigeria…You know, if military intervention comes to Nigeria now, we will just have to start afresh. You will never pray for a war because the intervention will definitely lead to war.” Participant 5, also rejected US military intervention out of fears of foreigners being unable to distinguish between criminals and civilians: “When another country intervenes in our country, I do not think they can differentiate between the people giving us this problem and the people of the country. It is only the people living in that settlement or area that can differentiate between the original Fulani and the criminals.”

Nigerians’ Thoughts about Military Alternatives to US Intervention

We then asked the interviewees how they would feel if alternative interveners were deployed to counter the regional violence instead of the US military.

The Nigerian Military

When the alternative was the Nigerian military, only Participants 1 and 5 showed a full preference for this option. Participant 1 noted: “The Nigerian military already knows what the problem is and they know what it takes to do it. If eventually they have what it takes to do it. They know what they need to solve the problem if it’s available…That’s what they are trained for.” Similarly, Participant 5 stated: “I’ll strongly accept Nigerian military intervention. They are the ones that are supposed to fight it for us because they are the ones in charge of our safety. When they decide to fight this battle, that is a very good idea. I will strongly support it because they know who to protect.”

However, many respondents believed that the Nigerian military is infiltrated and compromised. Participant 9 stated: “Nigerian military cannot intervene. Let me sincerely say it, because as soon as they make a decision in-house, the decision is immediately echoing in the bandits’ camp…. So, they cannot solve it, seriously. There is no way they can solve it.” In the same vein, Participant 7 alleged to have seen evidence of compromise: “I believe that the Nigerian military is corrupted. I have seen videos of the army in the frontlines of the battlefield, and then they find this insurgency, and then when they are about to maybe eliminate them, they get an order that, ‘Cease fire, don’t do anything to them, get back.’ So, it’s like, why? Why is that? We’ve had reports of it happening over and over again. So, I believe that the Nigerian military is compromised.”

Participant 10 pointed out resource diversion as a constraint on the Nigerian military’s effectiveness: “The Nigerian government has what it takes to handle this, but the truth is that bad governance prevents that from happening. They will carry things that they are supposed to give soldiers and give it to bandits. That’s the issue. They know that what these bandits carry, you cannot carry it as a soldier. They will give you 30 bullets. You are told to go and fight bandits. How will you fight bandits? We have the equipment, but the Nigerian government diverts it.”

Participant 8 identified internal betrayal as another limit on the Nigerian military’s capabilities: “If the military decides and chooses that they are going to end this, I believe the Nigerian military could have largely done it. But I believe the Nigerian military has been sold out already. There are a lot of people among them that might be leaking things to these terrorists, and that has made their fight ineffective. There was a time we saw a video in circulation that one of them was selling weaponry to these terrorists. Because of the many internal issues within the Nigerian military itself in combating the insecurity, I won’t trust it holistically the way it is as of now to combat insecurity.”

Local Vigilante Groups

Local vigilante groups, on the other hand, received sympathetic views from some respondents. Participant 7 saw them as essential for early warning and rapid response: “I will actually accept local community vigilante groups for warning and early detection but they will have to work with the Nigerian military. The local vigilante groups are more knowledgeable about their communities and they will be in the best position to know when something is off like if there’s a breach of our security. They have to be given more resources, more capacity, so that they can actually do better or protect the community well. They respond faster than the Nigerian military.”

Participant 10 also praised their motivation, seeing their ‘skin in the game’ as a big contributor to their effectiveness: “Vigilantes are trying their best. If the Nigerian military can join hands with vigilantes, I think that will help a lot. They don’t earn any salary, but they are doing their best to protect the community and the local villages in terms of thieves. Despite the fact that they don’t have weapons to fight, their presence matters a lot. They don’t accept anything like corruption. The vigilante is a farmer. He is trying to protect his farm from these Fulani herdsmen and bandits. They are well organized in terms of fighting or securing life and properties. You are not paying them salary, so you cannot give them any order.”

Participant 10 went on to share a concrete example: “I have five of my friends that are working with a group we call in our area ‘No English’. They are not educated, but they protect our community with their own lives. The bandits once cut off one woman’s hand in her farm around midnight. The police refused to go because they said they don’t have fuel for their own bike. The community people called the ‘No English’ group. At midnight, more than eight of them went there on machines (motorcycles). They apprehended the fellow that cut her hand.”

However, other respondents were less enthusiastic. Participant 5 was skeptical that local vigilante groups could handle serious threats: “Actually, no I don’t support vigilante groups. Because the perpetrators of the regional violence will end up killing all of them. Vigilante groups can never handle this situation. They can never because they don’t have what it takes to even confront these people. On the other hand, when we talk about the Nigerian military, we are talking about people that are professional. They are well-trained.” Participant 11 also noted the limitations of the vigilante groups: “Those local vigilante groups are really trying their best, but they don’t have the training. No skills, no strong weapons to face those bandits. If the terrorists attack them, they kill them in numbers because they are not well-trained. So, for them, they are only trying to alert the people to find safety, to reduce the casualties. I don’t think they can help.”

Nigerian Thoughts about Non-military Alternatives to US Intervention

As a way to wrap up the interviews, we asked the participants “If you had ₦100 million (about $70,000) to spend on reducing violence in northern Nigeria, what would you do with it?” This was to get at other interventions they deemed important but didn’t come up in our line of questioning.

Employment

A good number of our respondents felt that regional violence in northern Nigeria was driven by poverty, hunger, and a lack of economic opportunities. Thus, if resources were allocated towards creating jobs, youths vulnerable to recruitment into violent groups would not see any incentives for resorting to violence. Participant 1 focused on agricultural employment: “Here’s what I would do: I’ll go into crop production. There should be food everywhere. Just grow crops everywhere, food everywhere. I will engage the vulnerable youth into one thing or the other related to agriculture. Come into the farm.…We can do it. With ₦100 million we don’t even need the government to set up farms for us. We can do it ourselves.”

Participant 7 said: “For me, first and foremost is, you know, reducing poverty. I believe that these extremists and these insurgents are involved in such activities because of poverty. So, if there could be interventions that will help train people with different things that will build their capacity to become entrepreneurs and responsible, that would be what I would put the 100 million into.”

Dialogue

Participant 5 took a more controversial approach, suggesting direct engagement with the perpetrators: “I will try to communicate with the criminals, because there must be a way of communication between the criminals and the government. I will go to them and I will like to know the main reason why they are killing and maybe if it’s possible, I will provide a good shelter for them or a salary, even without working, every month, so that they will go back to their homes. They will repent, stop the killings and live their lives comfortably because actually, they are not comfortable living in the bush.”

Local Community Structures

Given their distrust in the Nigerian military, many respondents expressed a preference towards allocating resources directly towards local community structures. Participant 10 noted: “I have five of my friends that are working with a local community vigilante group. The way we call them in our area is ‘No English’. If I have access to resources, I will focus on those people and make sure I give them proper training. Number one, give them weapons. Number two, show them the value of that community or the people you are protecting. I will make sure I empower them, giving them maximum support, like machines (motorcycles). I’ll make sure that in any village, if anything happens, before they call the police, they call that local community vigilante first. They are ready to go anytime you call them.” Participant 11 also agreed: “If I have the 100 million naira, I would rather use that money to strengthen the local vigilante groups, irrespective of where the person comes from or who the person is. Just give the person training and discipline.”

Strengthening Legal and Judicial Infrastructure

Other respondents identified investments in the rule of law as the top priority for curtailing regional violence in Nigeria. Participant 4 stressed funding prosecutions: “I think what I would do with it is hire a lot of lawyers that are going to prosecute people who contribute to this evil act and bring them to justice. At least, giving people who have lost loved ones to regional violence justice will grant them some sort of humanity. They will not be as angry as they are now. They will see that the government is doing something about regional violence. And also maybe file cases against people who are being released from banditry charges easily.”

While seeing the value of investments in the rule of law, Participant 8 did not think there was sufficient will among the political elite to see it through: “I don’t think money is the major challenge to reducing insecurity in Nigeria now. We can gather intelligence and find out about people who are complicit, but if we are unwilling to prosecute such people, they will still be walking around the street. In addition to having the money to gather intelligence, being in a position of governmental power to prosecute people would really go a long way, even more than the money. More importantly, 100 million naira is enough to buy armaments, intelligence, and also have government support to prosecute people who are complicit, in addition to spending the 100 million naira for intelligence gathering.”

Policy-Relevant Considerations

Although our sample size was small, the findings from this study highlight a number of considerations:

First, we need to move beyond binary intervention debates. Out of the 106 people we surveyed, only about 35% consistently chose either all ‘No’ or all ‘Yes’ across all likelihood levels for US military intervention. The majority of our respondents, instead, showed support for US military intervention given certain conditions. This ranged from a high likelihood of successfully suppressing regional violence to the form of intervention provided, such as offering technological support and collaborating with the Nigerian military. While our sample size limits generalization, the geopolitical composition of our sample (56% northern residents vs 39% southern residents) provides some regional representation and we believe it is plausible that this graded, conditional support for US military intervention mirrors how most Nigerians actually think about this issue.

Second, there is no shared consensus about the religious framing of the regional violence in Nigeria. Although Christian interviewees generally endorsed the religious framing of the violence, and the Muslim participants mostly rejected it, many participants also agreed that there were structural factors such as poverty, poor governance, and political manipulations driving people towards perpetrating regional violence. Consequently, this suggests that exclusively framing the regional violence in Nigeria as religious persecution or inter-religious conflict may only bring about more division which could divert attention from the real root causes and their potential solutions.

Third, even among respondents who expressed relatively high trust in the Nigerian government or low trust in the US government, interviews revealed a general distrust of Nigerian institutions which took different forms. Some participants described relatively benign distrust rooted in technical and infrastructure constraints on the effectiveness of Nigerian institutions, while others had a deeper distrust of the military/political/bureaucratic elite grounded in perceptions of corruption and collusion. These findings suggest that the Nigerian government has a lot of work to do to rebuild public trust in its institutions. Efforts to improve accountability among the political and military elites, increasing transparency into government spending through open and verifiable databases, and visibly prosecuting individuals complicit in violence would likely signal a stronger commitment to the rule of law which will translate to increased public trust. Sustained investments in poverty alleviation, education, and literacy programs will also increase trust in the long run

Finally, the relatively high level of trust in local vigilante groups has pros and cons. These vigilantes are familiar with the local terrain and have a personal stake in the safety of their communities which incentivizes them to respond to threats quickly. Yet, as the interviews revealed, the vigilantes are often ill-equipped to counter better-armed terrorists. Besides, what is to stop armed vigilantes from extracting rent in the form of ‘protection’ money from the locals? In this case, the Nigerian government will have to take a bar-bell approach that requires investments in both ends of the security spectrum. On one end, there should be investments made towards professionalizing the Nigerian military, police and other public safety arms in the country. This is a long-term vision which requires sustained investments and changes won’t happen overnight. On the other end, where the local vigilantes already operate, there needs to be semi-formal oversight mechanisms to prevent abuse. Someone shouldn’t be able to just randomly pick a cutlass and claim to be a vigilante. These mechanisms may include simple registration systems that document who is authorized to serve as a vigilante, basic training programs on rules of engagement and legal constraints, simple identification systems for accountability, and minimal codes of conduct enforced through community oversight. Once the more formal public safety systems have been professionalized and regained legitimacy, semi-formal partnerships between the local police and the local vigilantes can then be established which could lead to the latter gradually integrated into the former.

The selection process was competitive, but these three awardees stood out for the strength of their applications, the originality of their research questions, and the potential for their work to drive meaningful impact in their communities.

Ishaya Bitrus Wudiri

Project: The Anchor Effect: Optimizing Health Subsidy Design for Long-Term Child Health Adherence in Gwange, Maiduguri.

Ishaya Bitrus Wudiri is a nursing student at the University of Maiduguri with a focused interest in health data science and evidence-based public health research. His experience includes designing automated reporting systems and conducting statistical analysis on large healthcare datasets. He has supported collaborations between government entities and development partners that contributed to improved data collection processes and more efficient reporting workflows. His work reflects a strong interest in using data to inform practical public health decision-making.

Yewande Lydia Olubodun

Project: Investigating the Challenges Students Face in Mathematics: Factors Contributing to Difficulty

Yewande Lydia Olubodun is an educator and the founder of April Initiatives, a non-governmental organization focused on community empowerment. She works as a mathematics tutor and adolescent educator, combining classroom experience with a strong interest in understanding learning barriers. Yewande brings careful attention to detail and an applied perspective to research, drawing on her background in education to examine factors contributing to academic difficulty.

Ikwu Joseph Mariam

Project: Affordable Health Insurance for Low-Income Nigerians.

Ikwu Joseph Mariam is a data analyst and research professional with experience in data analytics, quality assurance, and research and development across pharmaceutical and business contexts. His work focuses on transforming data into actionable insights to support evidence-based decision-making and organizational learning. His current research interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence, social data, and economic behavior.

What Happens Next

Awardees have completed human subjects research ethics training and participated in an initial training session on adapting HPT methodology to their specific research questions. They have also received their first disbursement of ₦50,000 to begin fieldwork.

As researchers collect and prepare their data, the PROMISE Labs Africa team will conduct at least one additional training session focused on data analysis techniques. The remaining ₦50,000 will be released upon submission of final deliverables, including a 2–4 page research brief and a presentation of findings to the PROMISE Labs Africa team.

We congratulate the awardees again and look forward to supporting these researchers over the coming months and sharing their findings with the broader community. PROMISE Labs Africa remains committed to enabling early-stage, locally grounded research that contributes to practical understanding and policy-relevant insights across the continent.

My earliest memory of being admitted to a hospital was due to food poisoning after I insisted my parents get me pizza. This was back in the mid-1990s, and food hygiene standards were not what they are now in places like Galaxy, Dominos, and other big chain pizzerias in Nigeria today. I probably voided a good proportion of my weight through both ends of my alimentary canal - but I was fortunate to be discharged the same day.

Another time, I had been playing basketball outdoors in high school and drank water from a nearby tap. I didn’t think too much about it because I had not seen my peers suffer any damage after drinking from the same source throughout the school year. Later that same day, I came down with a severe case of typhoid fever and had to be admitted to the hospital. I wasn’t discharged for another 2 - 3 weeks. Needless to say, I missed a good chunk of what was left of the school term and barely made it back in time for the final exams.

We didn’t have health insurance and my parents had to pay my hospital bills during these episodes out-of-pocket. Looking back, I am grateful they were able to do so. We were on the lower end of the middle class, but we had a safety net made up of extended family members and friends we could reach out to if push came to shove.

Not everyone has that option. Many Nigerians often face a ‘double whammy’ where they are vulnerable to many preventable diseases while also lacking the financial capacity to pay for healthcare. Even more puzzling is the fact that, although Nigeria has been operating a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) since 2005, less than 5% of the population is formally enrolled in health insurance.

So, what’s going on? Why is health insurance coverage so low in a country with an existing health insurance framework and widespread vulnerability to preventable illnesses?

How to Study Demand Without Selling Insurance

Measuring demand for health insurance in a society where the bulk of the population is uninsured can be tricky. Large-scale studies are possible, but can be slow, expensive, and logistically complicated to pull off.

At PROMISE Labs Africa, we approached this problem from a different angle. We designed a short survey presenting 15 different monthly insurance price points ranging from ₦5 (less than $0.01) to ₦560,000 (a little more than $370). For each price, we asked our Nigerian respondents whether or not they would be willing to purchase insurance coverage for themselves.

This is what we found after aggregating the responses we got from 63 Nigerians who completed our survey:

As you can see, it follows what you’d expect. At lower prices, most participants say ‘Yes’ , and as the price increases, more participants start to say ‘No’. While the overall downward slope is intuitive, let’s focus on that price point where 50% of the respondents say ‘Yes’ and the remaining say ‘No’. We will call this the P50.

For this sample, P50 was ₦3,299.75 (≈ $2.20), which translates to roughly ₦39,600 per year (≈$26.40/year). For comparison, Figure 2 shows the three lowest yearly plans on a private Nigerian insurance platform, AXA Mansard, gradually gaining popularity.

Who Can Afford What?

Merely looking at the overall curve in Figure 1 hides a lot of things. When we broke down the aggregate data by the different demographic groups, the P50 values shifted around in really interesting ways.

Here’s what we found out:

Income: As expected, higher-income respondents had a P50 (₦6,201.31; ≈$4.13) roughly three times that of lower-income respondents (₦2.062.11; ≈$1.37). That said, at very low prices, a higher proportion of lower income earners responded ‘Yes’ compared to higher income earners.

Age: The P50 for older people (₦6,279.21; ≈$4.20) was more than 2 times that of younger people (₦2,571.22; ≈$1.72). This makes sense as older people tend to be more established in their careers and are typically higher income earners than younger people. Older folks are also likely to face more health challenges compared to younger people and may consequently value health insurance more.

Gender: Women exhibited a P50 of ₦7,750.12 (≈$5.17), more than 2.5 times that of men at ₦3,021.95 (≈$2.00). This likely reflects women’s roles as the primary health decision-makers in their households. That said, we found a higher proportion of men saying ‘Yes’ to health insurance at very low prices compared to women.

Religiosity: Surprisingly, highly religious participants showed a P50 (₦8,829.97; ≈$5.89) that was nearly 10 times that of the less religious (₦905.75; ≈$0.60). You would expect highly religious individuals to value health insurance less because of beliefs in supernatural health and a perceived immunity from sickness. It is also possible that the highly religious respondents also happened to be high income individuals who could afford health insurance.

Alcohol consumption: Non-drinkers exhibited higher P50 values (₦4.686.89; ≈$3.12) than drinkers (₦2,309.02; ≈$1.54). It is plausible that non-drinkers simply have higher income levels than the drinkers and could therefore afford to pay more for insurance.

Gambling: The P50 for those with a gambling history (₦10,524.20; ≈$7.02) was almost 3 times that of non-gamblers (₦3,884.17; ≈$2.59). One explanation could be that gambling is associated with health issues and gamblers may see their premium as a license to engage in risky behavior (moral hazard). That said, at lower prices, the proportion of non-gamblers who responded ‘Yes’ was higher than that of gamblers.

Economy Type: Finally, whether respondents were told they could purchase insurance from multiple sellers (₦3694.87; ≈$2.46) or only one (₦3591.48; ≈$2.39) had very little effect on P50.

What’s Happening Under the Hood?

We knew that demand would vary with the characteristics of the different participants in our sample. However, we wanted to find out if there were other factors at play that we hadn’t considered in our survey.

To get to the root of this, we asked those who had completed our survey if they were interested in being interviewed. Fortunately, we had five people who indicated interest and showed up in a focus group style interview. Because a couple of weeks had passed since the initial study, our team had these five participants take the same short survey again before we started asking them to share the rationale behind their choices.

Before we go over their responses, the figure below shows the response pattern of the 5 participants we interviewed.

As you can see, Participant 1 and 5 had demand curves similar to what we had at the aggregate level. That is, when the price of health insurance was low, there was a strong willingness to purchase it. And after a certain threshold price was crossed (₦5,500/≈$3.67 for Participant 1 and ₦17500/≈$11.67 for Particpant 5), demand dropped to zero.

But there was something else going on, which would have been missed if you’re only looking at the data in aggregated form.

No, not Participant 2. She was willing to purchase health insurance at all prices up to ₦3,000 (≈$2.00) after which she just stopped responding. But take a look at Participant 3 and Participant 4. They both had a demand curve that took the shape of an inverted-U. In other words, they were unwilling to pay for health insurance if it was either too cheap or too expensive.

When we asked why they responded in this manner, Participant 3 said, “I chose “No”, from ₦5 to ₦1500, because I tried to live in the reality of things within the country. Basically, I tried to be realistic, and I know that [₦5 to ₦1500] is quite low for the situation.”

In the same vein, Participant 4 said: “I actually did not want to pick those ones [in] smaller currencies, because I felt...the quality of health care that I would be getting with that amount will not be so great... I’ll still prefer to pay a reasonable amount of money, even if it’s subsidized, so that I can be sure that I’m not getting Paracetamol or Vitamin C. I am sure that this is quality health care, not just a “figurehead” kind of insurance.”

In other words, a low-priced insurance coverage signals low quality to some Nigerians.

Additional factors that emerged as influencing how Nigerians valued health insurance include:

Family coverage: Participants deemed family coverage as higher in value to individual coverage. As one participant said: “If [the health insurance coverage] is going to involve my family, my husband, children, yes, [I will pay more]”

Perceived immunity: Some participants perceived themselves as relatively immune to serious illnesses and relied on pharmacists for routine care. One said: “If I feel a little bit ‘off’...well, to God’s praise, I rarely fall sick. But if I do, in those rare cases, I just go to the pharmacist and they prescribe something for me. I use it, and I’m fine.” This finding might be surprising to readers in developed economies where patients need a valid prescription from a doctor to access medication that cannot be obtained over-the-counter. In Nigeria, pharmacists do not have the legal authority to prescribe, although things are quite different in practice and many pharmacists dispense medication without a doctor’s prescription

Type of health facility covered: The value of an insurance plan is tied to the facility it covers. If the plan only provides access to Nigerian public/tertiary hospitals, notorious for their long wait times, the insurance loses its appeal. A participant noted: “I think the benefit [of health insurance] depends on which hospital you are registered with. If it is a public hospital or a tertiary hospital, the length of hours you have to stay on the queue before a doctor attends to you can be disheartening.”

Distrust of Nigerian institutions: A broader skepticism towards the Nigerian political class and the institutions they lead shapes how government-led insurance initiatives is valued: “It’s difficult to say some things in Nigeria because of the way the political leaders take decisions...I think there is already…an institution in charge of [health insurance]. That’s the NHIS. It’s good that people will get access to health care easily and at a cheaper cost, but in the long run, because of the way the country is, it could just get corrupted and become something that is not worth it after all.” This attitude might partly explain the low enrollment rates in the NHIS.

Policy Implications

Although our sample size was small, the findings from this study highlight a number of considerations for policymakers and private insurers serious about increasing enrollment rates in Nigeria.

First, a single-minded focus on making health insurance as cheap as possible may not have the intended results. Yes, certain subgroups showed a greater willingness to buy insurance at low prices (e.g., low-income earners, young people, and men). But at the same time, we found that extremely low prices may also be interpreted as a pointer to inferior services. For a country trying to increase enrollment rates, the last thing it wants to do is to antagonize women, who are often the main health decisionmakers in their households. Where insurance costs can be legitimately reduced without diluting the benefits, marketing efforts must focus on communicating this clearly so that people don’t automatically associate cheap with inferior.

Second, there needs to be tiered plans for population subgroups who demonstrate high demand at extremely low prices. There’s clearly an underserved market here. But these subgroups need more than just subsidized fees; they also need their benefit packages customized to their financial realities (e.g., unstable income, irregular employment) and their vulnerabilities (e.g., infectious disease treatment, basic maternal health care).

Third, we observed that there was a higher demand for health insurance among the more religious respondents, though this could have been because the high income respondents in our sample also happen to be very religious. Regardless, religious communities and institutions can be a potentially powerful ally that policymakers and private insurers are currently overlooking in their efforts to increase awareness and ultimately enrollment across the country.

Fourth, the workings of the insurance process needs to be made as intuitive and transparent as possible. As our interviews revealed, Nigerians are already quite distrusting of government institutions and initiatives. Therefore, any efforts made towards simplifying the enrollment process, clarifying what is and is not covered, and making the claims process as straightforward as possible will go a long way in reducing skepticism about insurance actually delivering when needed.

Finally, more work needs to be done in improving patients’ experience in public and tertiary hospitals. The recurring refrain of long queues and poor services need to be a thing of the past. Investments in staffing, infrastructure, professionalism, and reduced wait times would go a long way in increasing the perceived value of health insurance, and ultimately, enrollment rates.

Many thanks to Emily Brooke Felt, Dolores Lucero, and Ved Shankar for the conversations and feedback that shaped this essay.

I’m going to attempt to steelman him here: Basically, according to his theory, the extremely cold and snowy conditions in North America and Western Europe forced the locals to think about creative ways to survive in their harsh environments, which facilitated a lot of innovation and creativity. This, in turn, had the spillover effect of better coordination and organization which created the conditions for economic development. In contrast, less economically developed societies, particularly those in Africa, have been historically blessed with a mostly favorable climate and abundant natural resources. This made the locals complacent and unwilling to push themselves to be innovative and creative, and this is why Africa continues to languish in underdevelopment today.

I was appalled by the tens of thousands of likes, retweets and favorable comments this post got. Many contemporary Africans tend to see the West as the standard of civilization and civility, which unfortunately perpetuates subtle hints of inferiority and self-loathing1 felt both online and offline. I’m fortunate to have lived, at some point in my life, in Africa, North America and Western Europe. And one thing that has stood out to me is that, at a fundamental level, “humanness” is essentially the same everywhere - regardless of nationality, geography, language, or skin tone. There’s nothing innate about the people living in the West that makes them superior to their African counterparts. There are idiots in Africa, North America and Western Europe, just as there are incredibly smart people living in these same regions. Corruption exists in Africa, just as it does in North America and Western Europe. As the cliche goes, “Geography isn’t destiny,” and no one region has a monopoly on stupidity and corruption.

To pooh-pooh on his theory, I cited how it snows in both Mongolia2 and Kyrgyzstan,3 yet, they are not particularly known as paragons of economic growth. I also shared how I had been to El Paso, a city on the US-side of the US-Mexico border, and Juarez, a Mexican town on the Mexico-side of the border. Both towns have similar geographies, similar climates, and are less than an hour’s drive away from each other. Yet, because they are under different national governments, they have very different levels of economic development. At the end of the day, I posited, the main difference between the economically developed nations of North America and Western Europe versus those of Africa was the kinds of institutions at play. If we wanted to change Africa’s fate, we needed to change the way its bureaucratic, economic, legal, and political institutions functioned.

I was smugly satisfied with my dunk, left it like that, and moved on with my life.

My Introduction to Cultural Materialism

Back when I was in grad school (circa 2022), my PhD advisor had suggested I read a 1979 book written by the American anthropologist Marvin Harris, called “Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture.” I had bought the book a year later, but never got to reading it due to the million other things I was reading at the time to get my dissertation done and get my doctorate.

This year, I finally picked it up. Not because I had the extra bandwidth to do so after meeting the demands of my 9-to-5 and doing behavioral science research at PROMISE Labs Africa. Rather, at that point, I had started feeling that my position of seeing weak institutions as the sole cause of Africa’s predicaments was at best incomplete. Prior to gaining independence from European colonialists in the 1950s and 1960s, for instance, some African nations had been “set up”4 with the bureaucratic institutions that could give the semblance of a functioning democracy, such as a literate civil service, an elected legislature, legal codes, political parties and a police force. Yet, in less than 10 years or so, everything came crashing down, with many of these African states falling under decades of military rule or authoritarian control. As it turns out, institutions may not be the be-all and end-all of economic development that they’re touted to be.

In Cultural Materialism, Marvin Harris offers a more complete framework5 that could be used to both understand and analyze different societal systems. Its three key levers are:

• Platforms: These are the observable material conditions that make social life even possible in the first place.6 The actual word Harris uses is infrastructure, but I prefer platforms as it unambiguously connotes a kind of foundation upon which everything else is built. Harris subdivides this lever further into modes of production,7 which deals with the different types of tools, technologies and labor used to produce food and energy; and modes of reproduction,8 which comprises of factors that directly affect a society’s population, such as age and gender distributions, birth and mortality rates, as well as technologies for controlling population, e.g., contraception. Harris also considers ecological and environmental factors, including climatic conditions, and the kinds of plant and animal species that can breed in an area, as core components of the modes of production.

• Protocols: These are the different formal and informal rules and arrangements that shape how people in a society interact, coordinate and organize themselves. In his taxonomy, Harris uses the word structure, but I went with protocols (h/t Venkatesh Rao) to make this lever more resonant with the examples it contains. Harris further divides protocols into two subcategories: domestic economy, which is concerned with rules of coordination in a domestic setting (e.g., family size, marriage structure, age and gender roles); and, political economy, which focuses on the formal and informal rules of coordination within and between larger societal units like clans, villages, states, and empires (e.g., taxation systems, land tenure, norms about class/caste hierarchies, codified laws).

• Paradigms: These are the different ideas, values, meanings, philosophies and beliefs that shape and constrain individual and group preferences.9 As I am wont to do, I have replaced superstructure, the term that Harris uses for this lever, with paradigms, which is a word everyone easily associates with worldviews.

How the Levers Interact

One staple of Cultural Materialism is the idea that causality primarily flows from the platforms to protocols to paradigms. An example Harris provides in the book is how the religious beliefs around abstaining from eating pork evolved in the Near and Middle East. At first, pigs were highly valued as a source of protein and were hunted down for their meat, as they foraged in their natural habitat near forests, river banks, and swamp edges. During the First Agricultural Revolution, however, people in the area started shifting away from nomadic hunter-gathering and towards more sedentary settlements that adopted agricultural practices like large-scale mixed farming and cattle herding. This shift had ecological consequences down the line as larger and larger human settlements caused widespread deforestation in the area, which converted previously forested areas into grasslands and deserts. This meant that there was nowhere for pigs to forage. In these conditions, if pigs were to be domesticated, they had to be fed with cultivated grains, which also reduced the stock available for human consumption. Add to that their need for shade and moisture in an area that was increasingly hot and dry, the costs of domesticating pigs started to outweigh their benefits.

Unlike cattle, sheep and goats, which all can graze the grasslands and provide people with milk, or horses and donkeys that could be ridden and used to plow fields, the only value pigs offer is the delicious taste of its flesh. Considering all these, it is not surprising that societies in the area started developing social norms, and eventually religious taboos banning pork consumption. Interestingly, in forested areas like Ancient Europe and China, there were no taboos surrounding the consumption of pigs because it wasn’t ecologically expensive to do so. Harris called this infrastructural determinism: the kinds of protocols (pork consumption taboos) and paradigms (religious beliefs about pigs being ceremonially unclean) that evolve in a society are constrained by the types of platforms (arid climate, competition of pigs with humans for grains and water) already in place.

This is not to say that innovations and changes at the protocol or paradigm levels do not have any effects at other levels. Harris argues that they do, but they do so in a very specific way. Protocols and paradigms are typically system-maintaining. In other words, any changes to a society at these levels are unlikely to take root unless they are compatible with the underlying platform. As already mentioned earlier, religious beliefs deeming pigs as ceremonially unclean, and taboos surrounding pork consumption didn’t rise in Ancient Europe and China because they weren’t supported by the platform (wet climate, abundance of water, and fertile lands). On the flip side, suppose swine flu breaks out today, public health departments all over the world would place large scale bans on pork consumption, while also updating everyone’s beliefs about the potency of vaccines in preventing infection. That is why in Cultural Materialism, changes in the platform level are likely to reverberate throughout the whole system, while changes at the protocol or paradigm levels can only do so to the extent that they align with the underlying platform.

Why is Africa the Way it is?

So, was that Nigerian Twitter user partly correct? Is it true that snow in North America and Western Europe was a forcing function for adaptation and innovation which eventually created the conditions for the economic growth and societal development in those regions? Is Africa’s fate the way it is today because the climate was favorable and its inhabitants were content to do nothing but eat off the land?

On the surface, Cultural Materialism appears to agree and say ‘Yes’ - after all, climatic conditions are part of the environmental factors at the platform level.

But such an analysis won’t be using the framework to its fullest capabilities. The modes of production and reproduction, for instance, are also platform-level factors that raise questions that need to be addressed, such as, “What kind of work did people do to get food?”, “What types of tools and technologies were available for them to do their work?”, “What types of plants could grow in that region?” or “What was the age and gender distribution of the people living in that region?”

As you grapple with the questions Cultural Materialism forces you to think about, you start to realize that all societies - not just those who lived where it snowed - were actively innovating and adapting to fit the constraints imposed on them by platform-level factors.10 And from these patterns of innovation and adaptation emerged social norms and arrangements, which in turn informed the types of ideas and values that emerge to shape individual- and group-level preferences.

At the end of the day, the biggest lesson from Cultural Materialism is this: if you are tempted to label an action or behavior as ‘bad’ or ‘maladaptive’, you shouldn’t start by asking questions like “Why are these people uncivilized?”, but rather, “What platform-level conditions are they adapting to and what protocol and paradigm levers are perpetuating these?”

Cultural Materialism is neither perfect nor complete by any means. For instance, I still don’t think it fully explains why societies with similar platforms (e.g., the earlier referenced similar geographies and demographic makeup of Juarez and El Paso) may end up developing wildly different protocols and paradigms. The political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, whose book The Origins of Political Order I will be reviewing in the future, flips cultural materialism on its head and proposes that it is the paradigms (i.e., ideas and beliefs such as the rule of law and the protestant ethic) that should take causal priority in explaining why societies are the way they are.

I’m still thinking about where I stand in the debate. Regardless, Cultural Materialism offers a useful starting point for understanding Africa and its socio-economic outcomes, and trying to do something about it.

Thanks to Emily Brooke Felt, Dolores Lucero, Ved Shankar, Lily Luo, Davide Bruzzone, and Justin Tovilode for the conversations and feedback that shaped this essay.

We’re funding three researchers with up to ₦100,000 each to conduct behavioral economics research addressing real problems in Nigerian communities. Whether you’re new to behavioral economics or an experienced researcher, this FAQ covers methodology requirements, application tips, and program logistics. Reading the relevant sections will help you submit a competitive application.

Ready to apply? Submit your application here by 31st October 2025. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted for a brief interview.

General Program Questions

What is this grant?

A small pilot to support African-led behavioral economics research that addresses socially important problems in Nigeria or Africa.

What counts as a socially important problem?

A problem is socially important if solving it would improve everyday well-being for a meaningful number of people in Nigeria or Africa, reduce an unfair gap, or help a public service work better. It should be something a community, NGO, company, or government could act on within a reasonable time. This includes existing services, programs and products, as well as those that could be realistically developed or implemented in the future.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Health and wellbeing: Clinic visits, vaccination days, family planning, mental health sessions.

• Education and skills: School meals, exam fees, tutoring sessions, data bundles for study.

• Economic inclusion: Market stall fees, micro-insurance, training sessions, tool rental.

• Security and safety: Community security services, neighborhood watch programs, emergency response systems.

• Infrastructure and environment: Public toilet use, water connection fees, prepaid electricity bundles, waste collection.

• Governance and institutions: Government service delivery, official documentation processes

• Digital access and finance: Data bundles, public Wi-Fi, bill payment channels

We’re not looking for purely academic questions without clear relevance to people’s daily lives, or issues that don’t connect to improving outcomes for Nigerian/African communities.

The key test: Can you explain in simple terms how your research findings could inform better policies, programs, or community initiatives - whether existing or planned - that would improve people's lives? If yes, it likely addresses a socially important problem.

How many awards and how much?

Three awards, up to ₦100,000 per project.

Who is eligible to apply?

Individual researchers based in Nigeria. This includes students, early-career researchers, independent researchers, and academics at any career stage. You do not need a university affiliation.

Do I need prior experience in behavioral economics?

Helpful but not required. We are looking for good ideas and the ability to learn and apply the method.

Can I apply if I’m not Nigerian or not based in Nigeria?

Applicants must be based in Nigeria. Non-Nigerian African researchers living and working in Nigeria are welcome.

Application Process

How long should my application take to complete?

Most applicants will spend 1 - 2 hours. Be clear and concise within the word limits.

What if I don’t have a strong academic background to link to?

That’s fine! Share whatever helps us understand your capabilities - LinkedIn, personal projects, coursework, or relevant experience.

Can I submit multiple applications?

No. Submit only one application. Multiple applications will result in disqualification.

Can I work with collaborators or research assistants?

Applications must be from individuals. You may use research assistants or informal collaborators during implementation, but you remain solely responsible for the project and deliverables.

Research Requirements

What counts as “primary data collection”?

Any method where you gather new data directly from participants, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or experiments that incorporate an Hypothetical Purchase Task (HPTs; see primer). Secondary data analysis is not eligible. Mixed methods are welcome but not required.

Can I study sensitive topics?

Yes, as long as your research is minimal-risk and ethically sound. You must obtain proper informed consent and follow ethical research practices. Research involving minors requires formal ethics approval.

Budget, Tools & Timeline

What can I spend the money on?

Typical expenses include participant tokens, transportation, data costs, printing, local venues for a small focus group, transcription, research assistance, and small essential equipment. Keep the budget detailed and realistic. Avoid large equipment purchases.

What if I have internet connectivity issues?

Plan for this in your timeline and budget.

What if my project takes longer than 16 weeks?

Projects must be completed within 12 - 16 weeks. Plan realistically and include buffers. If you think your idea needs more time, reduce the scope of your project.

When will funding be disbursed?

50% is released within 48 hours of project approval and submission of required ethics training documentation (see “After Selection” below). The remaining 50% is released when you submit your final deliverables.

How will you send the money?

We pay by Naira bank transfer to a Nigerian bank account in the winner’s name. No cash, checks, or third-party accounts. We do not collect bank details on the application form. Selected winners will be asked to provide their account name, bank name, and account number. We may request a simple ID check to match the account holder’s name.

Do I need special software for data analysis?

Use whatever tools work best for your project and budget. Free options include R, JASP, PSPP, Taguette, and even Google Sheets.

Can I conduct data collection remotely or in person?

Either is fine. Choose what fits your participants and budget.

What language should I use for data collection?

Use the languages your participants speak. The final brief and presentation should be in English.

Selection Process

How many applications do you expect?

This is a pilot. We will evaluate all qualifying applications and select the three strongest proposals.

What makes a strong application?

• Clear research question addressing a real Nigerian problem

• Incorporates HPT (Read this primer on HPTs)

• Realistic budget and timeline

• Evidence that you can execute the project

• Potential for actionable insights

What happens after I submit my application?

After the deadline, we will review all submissions. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for a brief interview. Winners will be announced following these interviews.

Will you provide feedback on unsuccessful applications?

We cannot provide individual feedback due to team size. We may share general insights on future versions of this FAQ page.

When will I hear back?

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interviews within two weeks of the application deadline. Final winners will be announced shortly after interviews are completed.

After Selection

What do I need before I can start my project?

Selected winners must complete a human subjects research ethics course and submit the evidence of completion before starting data collection. Training must have been completed within the past 3 years. You can either submit documentation for training you’ve already completed, or complete an approved course after selection.

Courses that qualify include:

• CITI Program Social and Behavioral Research Basic or Refresher

• Global Health Training Center Research Ethics Online Training

• OHRP Human Research Protection training

• Institutional ethics training that covers informed consent, risk assessment, and protection of vulnerable populations

Acceptable evidence includes certificates, transcripts, or an official completion email that clearly shows your name, course title, and completion date.

What exactly are the “deliverables” for this grant?

• A final research brief (2-4 pages) summarizing your methods, findings, and implications

• A brief presentation of your results to the PROMISE Labs Africa team

What does potential collaboration on publications mean?

If your research generates interesting findings, we may invite you to collaborate on an academic paper based on your work. This is optional and would follow standard academic authorship practices.

Can I present this work at conferences?

Yes. Please acknowledge the PROMISE Labs Africa microgrant.

What if I encounter problems during my research?

We’ll provide light-touch support throughout the process. Email us at microgrants@promiselabs.africa if you run into significant challenges.

How to Apply

Ready to Apply? Submit your application here by 31st October 2025. Please apply only once. When applications close, the link will be disabled on this page.

Still have questions? Email us at microgrants@promiselabs.africa

About ten years ago, I found myself in Twon-Brass1, an island tucked into the oil-rich belly of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. It sounds a bit glamorous until you are actually there. I was doing community fieldwork for an HIV/AIDS program: walking under the scorching sun, soaked in sweat, doing my best to convince poor, skeptical fishermen to take an HIV test.

After a day’s work engaging with the locals, my colleagues suggested we check out the island’s beach.

It was breathtaking.

Untamed. Unfiltered. Just sand melting into the sea, shrubs swaying lazily, and a sunset so cinematic it would make a poet out of anybody. The air tasted of salt and possibility.

But something was off. Where are all the people? The beach bars? The hotels? The tourist traps selling overpriced coconut drinks? The fancy homes with straw hats hanging on doors?

This place should have been a weekend getaway destination buzzing with life. Instead, it was just nature doing its thing, quietly. And my colleagues and I, standing there with our jaws unhinged.

But then, things got stranger: just a few minutes’ walk inland from the beach, stood concrete fortresses of multinational oil companies. It looked as if someone had changed the channel on reality. Their fences soared high, crowned with enough barbed wire and paranoia to make you wonder if they were keeping something in or something out. Some buzzed with electricity, in case the barbed wires weren’t clear enough.

As I walked through the island, caught halfway between paradise and power, I couldn’t help but wonder:

How can a region literally floating on billions of dollars’ worth of crude oil2 leave its people with so little to show for it?

This wasn’t just a Twon-Brass thing. Similar contradictions play out all over Africa. We’ve got the natural resources, oceans of foreign aid, the programs, the slogans…and still, Africa continues to wallow beneath its potential. This gap continues to puzzle researchers and policymakers alike.

The usual suspects get paraded whenever this topic comes up: widespread corruption3 4 (check), weak institutions5 6 (check) and poor governance7 (triple check).

Yet, I believe that the root cause is something much more fundamental: Too often, the behavioral insights informing initiatives and interventions implemented in Africa come from studies done in Western societies - on people who look, think and live nothing like Africans! The result? Fancy initiatives with glossy logos that don’t stick because they were never rooted in the local soil in the first place.

For Africa to truly thrive, we need behavioral research led by Africans, shaped by African realities, and agile enough to respond to the pulse of on-the-ground dynamics. It is only when we truly understand the African decision-making landscape that we can design initiatives, interventions and policies that don’t just look good in PowerPoint slides but actually work in the villages, towns, and cities where real Africans live their beautifully complicated lives.

II.

Decision-making anywhere is messy. It’s often not as straightforward as weighing your options, picking the rational8 one, and boom - problem solved, satisfaction maximized! This is even more so in the African context.

When an African falls sick, for instance, the decision tree doesn’t simply branch to “Go to the hospital” or “Take medication”. There may also be “Could this be a spiritual attack from that lady who gave me a side-eye at a wedding three years ago?” and “Is this a generational curse because my great-great-grandfather allegedly stole a goat in 1823?” And even if you do make it to the clinic, an auntie three states away may still insist you also need to see a prophet or spiritualist just in case.

Similarly, in daily interactions, decisions often hinge on how well you can read between the lines, not just on what people are actually saying. And getting this wrong can lead to wildly different outcomes. A smiling “It’s fine” from an offended party could mean anything from “It’s genuinely okay” to “I will remember this betrayal until my dying day.” Whether you drop the topic or launch into damage control mode depends entirely on which one it actually is. “I’m on my way” can mean anything from “I'll be there in five minutes” to “I might arrive next Thursday, weather permitting.” That’s why anyone who has organized events in Africa has learned to put “NO AFRICAN TIME!” on invitations - because without it, a 5 pm start time might be interpreted as “5 pm is when you should start getting dressed.”

The same thing plays out in money matters. You land a job, and you think, finally, I can save, update my investment portfolio, and build a life. Not so fast - you’ve got dues to pay. Not taxes in the IRS sense, but something heavier. We Africans call it “Black tax”9: an unwritten social contract where your success belongs to everyone who shares even a drop of your DNA. Whatever individual achievements you have automatically becomes collective property - there’s no opting out, no negotiating the terms. Your cousin needs school fees? That’s on you. Uncle’s roof is leaking? Open your wallet. The neighbor who helped raise you needs capital for their business idea involving imported Brazilian hair? Congrats, you’re now a venture capitalist!

Even the “educated elite” aren’t immune to these dynamics. During my undergraduate days at the University of Ibadan (Nigeria’s first and finest!), I occasionally stumbled upon what can only be described as ritual sacrifices left on campus grounds. I’m talking about palm oil, kola nuts, moin-moin10, and eko11, wrapped in uma12 leaves and arranged in a calabash13. Were they placed there by a student desperately trying to pass CHEM 157, or a lecturer trying to get tenure? I didn’t dig around to find out. But the fact that someone thought that appeasing ancestral spirits was a reasonable strategy within the four walls of a university powerfully illustrates just how context shapes behavior.

The anthropologist Joseph Henrich14 probably wasn’t thinking specifically about my calabash encounters when he wrote his 2020 book “The WEIRDest People in the World”. In the book, Henrich compellingly argued how Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) populations demonstrate psychological characteristics that are extreme compared to the global average. WEIRD societies favor individualism over community (no “Black tax”), think analytically instead of holistically (see success and health as independent of spiritual forces), prefer direct, explicit communication over subtext (5 pm is 5 pm), and trust strangers sometimes more than family (no fears of spiritual attacks from a side eye at a wedding)!

Yet, almost everything we think we know15 about human behavior comes from studying this small slice of humanity. It’s like trying to understand fruits by exclusively studying oranges.

The same thing happens when you try to apply WEIRD science to non-WEIRD realities.

You get fancy theories that don’t land; policies that misunderstand people; and behavior change campaigns that don’t work. The PMTCT16 programs that banned traditional birth attendants (TBAs) from deliveries17 to prevent HIV transmission are a case in point. These programs dismissed these TBAs, despite them being the most trusted healthcare providers in their communities. This led to many women opting out of facility-based births altogether, ultimately missing out on the very life-saving interventions the programs were designed to deliver.18

III.

Let’s be clear: you cannot outsource an Afrocentric behavioral science. You may ship in consultants, fly in PhDs, import theories with footnotes longer than an adult’s arm - but if the people collecting and interpreting the data don’t live the realities on the ground, something vital gets lost in translation. It’s like asking someone who has never tasted jollof rice19 to judge a West African cooking contest. They might be a Michelin Starred chef, but they are still missing that essential something - the lived experience that tells you when the spice balance hits that sweet spot between “delicious” and “my mouth is on fire!”

Centering African researchers at the forefront is not about ticking the diversity checkboxes on grant applications or adding “local ownership” buzzwords to donor reports. It is a matter of pure pragmatism!20

African researchers have the ultimate home-field advantage. They live in the communities they study. They ride the okadas21 through the dusty backroads, and understand why someone who might ignore a public health directive from the government will listen to warnings from their grandmother’s dream. They catch the unspoken meanings, the subtle head nods, the pregnant pauses that communicate volumes. These are the people best positioned to ask the right questions and make sense of the answers.

They also have what Nassim Nicholas Taleb22 calls “skin in the game”. This means that, unlike foreigners who can just pack their bags and head back to Geneva or D.C. when things go sideways, African researchers must live with the consequences of the policies and interventions their work informs. So, when an African researcher analyzes how political decisions affect behavior, it’s not some abstract problem on a spreadsheet - they are actually watching how those policies ripple through their neighborhoods, families, and WhatsApp groups. When your own mother might use the healthcare system you’re analyzing, you are no longer just doing research to get tenure - it becomes personal. There is no evacuation operation. There is no Plan B. This creates a built-in accountability mechanism that no ethics committee could ever replicate.

IV.

So, if African researchers are so well-positioned to lead behavioral research on the continent, why aren’t they doing more of it?

To be fair, some are. The Busara Center23 in Kenya, for instance, is doing world-class, African-led behavioral research, and there are other promising initiatives across the continent. But the reality is that these are still exceptions rather than the rule.

Behavioral science in Africa is full of really smart people. But many of their ideas are scribbled in notebooks, whispered over campus benches, or filed away in laptops with cracked screens - not because they aren’t good, but because the researchers don’t have funds.

African governments often talk a big game about supporting research, but their wallets tell a different story. Back in 2006, the African Union members made a solemn promise to spend at least 1% of their GDP on research and development.24 Fast forward to 2024, and exactly ONE country - Egypt25 - has kept that promise. That’s it. One country out of fifty-four. The rest? Most are limping along at 0.5% or less26, and behavioral science is lucky if it even gets a slice of that tiny pie.

Why? The reasons are many. Low tax revenues.27 Resources diverted to foreign debt repayment and other competing priorities.28 And then, there’s the steady brain drain of African talent.29 But there is another reason that rarely makes it into the policy briefs: research just isn’t shiny.

African politicians love things they can cut ribbons on. Roads. Boreholes. Public toilets.30 Bags of rice handed out with a smile and a selfie during election season. Behavioral research? Nope. Too slow. Too abstract. It doesn’t make the headlines. It asks uncomfortable questions, and it’s harder to stamp your face on it for campaign posters.

So, instead, foreign institutions swoop in with their checkbooks and slick PowerPoint decks. Foundations, multilaterals, global consultancies. The nonprofit industrial complex - they are the ones bankrolling research on the continent. But here’s the issue: they often come with their own agendas and priorities. They arrive with pre-packaged research questions, methodologies, and expected outcomes that often have little to do with local realities. It’s like someone planning your weekly meals without asking you what you actually like to eat.

These organizations operate on funding models that prioritize neat numbers and photogenic success stories with tidy endings.31 32African researchers who want funding from these sources have to play by their rules and are often reduced to local implementers of someone else’s vision. That’s what happened in 2021 when the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative awarded a $30 million grant to institutions in America, U.K., and Australia to combat a disease that primarily affects Africa. Not a single African research institution made the list!33

Even when funding does get approved, a good chunk of it gets eaten up by “administrative overhead”. Translation: money for office chairs in New York and compliance meetings in London. By the time funding trickles down to actual researchers on the ground, it’s a fraction of what was pledged - and even that comes with strings attached.

Under these conditions, success gets redefined. It’s no longer about creating lasting positive change but about keeping donors happy with glossy reports and superficially impressive metrics. When success is measured by scale and speed, “We distributed 1,000,000 mosquito nets in the first quarter of the year!” can sound more impressive in a donor report than “We spent one year trying to understand why families keep using the mosquito nets to fish”34 35The unspoken goal shifts from solving Africa’s problems to managing them just well enough to justify the next round of funding. Running just enough programs to say “something is being done,” but not so much that anyone actually has to change the system.

V.

What if we didn’t wait for institutions with giant wallets and slow clocks? What if the part of answer wasn’t more money - but different money?

There’s a potential game-changer hiding in plain sight: microgrants from individual donors.

I’m talking about modest sums - $100 to $1,000 - that might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of international development but can spark revolutionary research when placed directly in the hands of African researchers.

Some people roll their eyes at the word “micro”. I know. It sounds…small. Cute even. Like five pieces of cashew nut when you were promised a feast. But in the right hands, a microgrant is rocket fuel. Think of microgrants as behavioral science's version of guerrilla warfare36 - nimble, adaptable, and surprisingly effective.

Now, to be clear, no collection of microgrants would ever be enough to build research labs or fund large-scale, ten-year studies tracking behavioral changes across entire populations. And that’s exactly the point! The goal here is not to give up on the fight for serious investments from major funders and African governments. Rather, it’s to make sure we’re not sitting around twiddling our thumbs while waiting for systemic change. With microgrants, African researchers can gather early data, build momentum, and create a pipeline of African-led research.

Conventional grants, for their part, often involve forms, committees, bank letters, institutional sign-offs, and what feels like a 12-step program to prove you’re not laundering funds through a ghost NGO. Microgrants? They can be awarded in days or weeks with minimal paperwork. This speed matters enormously in the rapidly evolving African context. For instance, suppose a new government rolls out a surprise policy (as they often do37), causing immediate behavioral ripples through communities. A researcher with a microgrant can pivot immediately to study these effects in real-time. Their traditionally funded colleague? Still updating their grant proposal’s timeline and getting signatures from thirteen different department heads.

Microgrants also create space for innovation and creativity. Because they are relatively small and low-stakes, African researchers can test unconventional research ideas that might sound strange in a formal proposal but could still lead to breakthrough insights. A researcher wants to study how African proverbs influence economic decision-making? Or how gossip shapes voter behavior? With microgrants, there is a chance to engage in this kind of ‘productive weirdness’.38 If it works? Brilliant - you’ve got proof of concept. If it flops? No big deal - fail fast, learn something, and try again.

This kind of freedom is rare in the traditional funding world, where risk aversion reigns and “innovation” often means “we added a dashboard that nobody asked for and nobody will use”. But for African behavioral researchers, especially early-career ones, microgrants are a license to tinker, explore, and get their hands dirty in the real world.

Perhaps the most magical thing about microgrants is their outsized impact. In many parts of Africa, where costs are relatively lower, $100 isn’t just spare change - it’s research transport, survey printing, airtime for Zoom interviews, maybe even a month’s rent for a grad student racing towards a deadline. With the current exchange rates, a single U.S. dollar can stretch farther than you’d expect. As of July 2025, for instance, one dollar gets you about ₦1500 in Nigeria - that’s enough for a research participant to catch a keke39 ride across town to take part in a focus group, and maybe still still leave them with change to grab a plate of iyán40 at a local buka41 if they know where to go.

That’s economic alchemy!

And the best part? Donors don’t have to be billionaires.

You. Me. Your group chat. Anyone with a little spare cash and a big belief in African research talent can fund this movement. Ten people chipping in $50 each could cover a full research project. A few hundred dollars could mean the difference between a brilliant idea dying in a notebook and generating insights that have the potential to challenge assumptions, spark conversations and ultimately inform real change in the community.

VI.

Let’s say you’re in. You believe in the power of microgrants. You’ve got a little money, a big heart, and maybe an itch to finally put some of your resources into something that isn’t an app designed in Silicon Valley.

Now what?

Here’s two ways to take action - depending on how deep you want to dive:

Option 1a: Fund our microgrant experiment.

I’m launching a pilot microgrant program through PROMISE Labs Africa42, the scientific nonprofit I run. When you contribute to our microgrant pool, your donation goes straight to individual researchers on the continent asking the questions that actually matter in their communities. No red tape. No overhead. No long delays.

If you’d like to help make that happen, you can donate here: https://givebutter.com/BMp3AA.

Whether you throw in $50 or $500, you’re helping spark the kind of research this essay has been arguing for all along: fast, flexible, locally relevant, and led by the people who live the questions.

As the program grows, we’ll share findings and insights from the researchers we fund: grad students, early-career scholars, and independent investigators across the continent. Over time, this will become a growing body of African behavioral research that actually reflects African realities.

Option 1b: Support our African-led proof of concept.

If you’d rather support work already underway, PROMISE Labs Africa is a solid choice. We are lean - just me, two brilliant full-time Research Associates (Deborah Odaudu and Kamikun Adekunle) and researchers who join us on a project-to-project basis.

We are currently conducting multiple small-scale behavioral studies to better understand how people in African communities actually navigate health-related behaviors. We’ve already got a preprint43 out for decision-making around getting a HIV vaccine44, another exploring demand for elderly care facilities45 among Nigerians, and a mixed-methods study on health insurance about to cross the finish line. Upcoming projects include studies on the recently rolled-out malaria vaccines, alternative approaches to public safety that don’t rely on traditional policing, sustainable waste management strategies, and drivers of electricity consumption decisions.

None of this work is currently backed by big institutions or massive grants. Every dollar goes directly into funding researchers, fieldwork, and data collection. No bloated overhead. No middlemen. When you donate to PROMISE Labs Africa46, you’re directly supporting real African-led research that starts with African questions, not imported assumptions.

With your support, we can grow our team of research fellows and associates, and scale our research. Donors can contribute at https://givebutter.com/9jm8ui. You can also email me at promise@promiselabs.africa to talk more about how your contribution could support specific research that interests you.

Option 2: Start your own microgrant program.

If you’re ready to dive deeper and start your own program, fair warning: it’s not for everyone, but it can be incredibly rewarding. The beautiful thing about microgrants is that you don’t need a fancy foundation letterhead or a corner office to make this happen. You can run a lean, high-impact microgrant program from your kitchen table or bed. You don’t even need to be African to fund African research effectively; what matters is respecting local expertise and letting researchers lead their own work.

Now, I’ll be honest - I don’t have a roster of people who have set up microgrant programs for African researchers to point you towards. What I do have is my experience as an African behavioral researcher, alongside insights I have picked up from independent researchers like Nadia Asparouhova474849 and Adam Mastroianni50 who have written extensively about funding research (though not Africa-focused).

If you’re serious about this, here’s a practical blueprint for getting started:

Start small and expect to learn as you go. Your first round doesn’t need to be perfect. Start with modest amounts - maybe $50-200 per project - and fund just 2-3 researchers to begin with. See what works, learn from the experience, adjust your approach and potentially scale up the amounts and number of grants.

Keep the application simple. A Google Form with a few open-ended questions (What do you want to do? Why is it important? How will you spend the funds?) is often enough. Set word limits to keep things tight and avoid fatigue on both sides. Clarity over formality, always.

Establish clear communication channels. Create a fresh email address just for the microgrant. Be crystal clear about expectations: Not everyone will get funding. Not everyone will get feedback on why they didn’t get funding. And yes, sometimes you might go quiet for a bit because you actually have a day job and a life outside of this!

Review applications in batches. Do monthly or quarterly rounds because trying to evaluate them one by one as they trickle in is the highway to burnout. Invite a few trusted friends to help if you need a second pair of eyes, but make sure they are not just available, but also aligned with your vision.

Shortlist wisely. Look for well-grounded proposals. Check the applicant’s digital footprint - their social media, any previous work, their general online presence. A quick video call can also go a long way in checking alignment and weeding out fluff.

Disburse funds directly. Use whatever platform won’t give you or the researcher a migraine. PayPal works in some places, Wise in others. Mobile money services like M-Pesa and O-Pay are very popular in countries like Kenya and Nigeria. You may also consider fintech platforms, such as Paystack, LemFi, Afriex, and Sendwave, which are fast, cheap, and purpose-built for African contexts. And yes, even cryptocurrencies can work - especially in countries with volatile currencies or restrictive banking systems. Just make sure the recipient knows how to receive and convert it safely.

Follow up lightly. You don’t need a full impact report. A one-page summary of findings is usually enough. Just something that shows the work happened and gives you a glimpse into what they learned. No dashboards. No PowerPoint slides with animated transitions. This reduces administrative burden while still offering some form of accountability. The goal is to empower these researchers, not micromanage them.

VII.

The seeds of this piece were planted on that beach in Twon-Brass, where I first started wondering why Africa was such a walking contradiction of abundance and scarcity. Years later, as a grad student, I spent countless hours poring over journal articles and started to notice a pattern: study after study conducted in WEIRD societies, with findings generalized to “human behavior” as if the rest of humanity were just footnotes.

Not long after I earned my PhD in May 2024, I came across a 2023 article titled “African researchers must be full participants in behavioural science research”51 by Winnie Mughogho, Jennifer Adhiambo and Patrick Forscher. Here were African researchers powerfully putting words to what I had long felt but never quite articulated: behavioral science had systematically relegated African researchers to glorified RAs while marginalizing African voices and perspectives. The realization hit me. Thanks to the WEIRD bias baked into the field, the way Africans actually live and make decisions sat squarely in the blindspot of most attempts to understand the continent’s struggles. The solution seemed clear: we needed to put research funding directly into African hands. I fired off a LinkedIn post, publicly promising the world I would write a protocol on how microgrants could accelerate behavioral research in Africa.

This essay is that promise - finally kept! What I thought would be a quick and straightforward technical protocol somehow had other plans. Ten months, several drafts, and over four thousand words later, here we are.

Better late than never, because the conditions for change have never been better aligned. There’s a generation of brilliant African researchers who are ready to tackle the complex behavioral questions that shape life on the continent. Social media has given researchers tools to share their work without waiting for permission from academic gatekeepers. And there’s now a plethora of digital payment systems that make it easier than ever to move funds across borders instantly. Together, these forces have created an unprecedented opportunity.

An individual who bets $100 on an African researcher’s idea is directly investing in the kind of intellectual infrastructure that can shape Africa’s transformation for decades to come. And the impact doesn’t end there. We now live in a world shaped by large language models trained on vast stores of WEIRD data.5253 As the rush for new, diverse data intensifies, the behavioral research that African scholars produce could become the very datasets that reshape future AI systems. The questions that African researchers are uniquely positioned to explore could expand how we think about human behavior itself.

Imagine a future where African universities are buzzing with research projects funded by individuals like you. Where policy makers in Lagos, Nairobi, and Accra base their decisions on insights generated by researchers who live in those cities. Where the next breakthrough in understanding human behavior comes not from an institute in Boston or Berlin, but from a researcher in Botswana. That future isn’t a fantasy but a reality entirely within reach. And you can help bring it to life.

The beach in Twon-Brass is still there. So are the fishermen I met, still navigating the paradox of abundance and scarcity in their struggling community. The literature reviews are still dominated by research from WEIRD societies. And the brilliant African researchers are still waiting for their chance.

But something has changed: there is a way we can start shifting the balance. A way to put resources directly in the hands of those closest to the questions.

Here’s your invitation: Share this piece. Fund a study. Start now. Don’t overthink it.

The behavioral revolution Africa needs can start with your next decision. Will you be part of it?

Promise Tewogbola, Ph.D., is a behavioral researcher whose work leverages insights from behavioral psychology, microeconomic theory, public health and behavioral economics to better understand how people make decisions impacting their lives. He is the Founder and CEO of PROMISE Labs Africa, a scientific nonprofit dedicated to cutting-edge translational behavioral research in Africa to generate actionable, evidence-based insights that inform effective policies and drive positive outcomes for Africans.

This essay exists because many brilliant people generously shared their time, insights, and honest feedback during its evolution from scattered thoughts to the piece you just read. My deepest gratitude goes to Emily Brooke Felt, Dolores Lucero, Malarkodi Selvam, Rose, Ved Shankar, Lily Luo, Aishat Ateiza, Vidhika Bansal, Suzanne Hitcho, Yolanda Truong, Rita Koon, Celeste, Davide Bruzzone, William, and Dan Xin Huang. They helped midwife this essay through multiple iterations, challenged my assumptions, sharpened my arguments, and saved me from the pitfalls of going the lone mad scientist route. Their thoughtful engagement has transformed what could have been a rambling academic rant into something that might actually spark the conversations and actions this work desperately needs. Any remaining flaws are entirely my own.

50

Experimental History

Funding science is actually a badass thing to do

It’s a grim time for science in America. The National Science Foundation might be forced to fire half its staff, grants are being frozen and reviewed for ideological purity, and universities may see their cut of those grants reduced by 40…

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a year ago · 255 likes · 50 comments · Adam Mastroianni