Standards & safeguards
The standards you have to certify, published in advance.
The six commitments a development partner has to establish before it can contract a national firm — set out here so they do not have to be established from scratch in every procurement.
Every instrument we design disaggregates by sex and, where the assignment allows, by disability using the Washington Group short set. Female enumerators are deployed as standard for girls' schooling and household surveys — in much of rural Pakistan, a male enumerator simply will not obtain a truthful answer from a female respondent, so this is a data-quality control before it is an inclusion commitment. Inclusion analysis is written into the analysis plan at inception, not appended at reporting.
Read the full commitment : Gender equality, disability & social inclusion
In practice
- Sex and disability disaggregation as default
- Washington Group short set where applicable
- Female enumerator cadre across provincial offices
- Inclusion analysis in the inception analysis plan
- GEDSI focal point named on each assignment
Our fieldwork brings adults into schools and households, often with children present. Safeguarding is therefore an operational control, not a policy document. Every field worker is vetted and inducted before deployment, signs a code of conduct, and works to a written protocol on contact with children. Reporting runs to a focal point outside the assignment team so that a concern about a team member does not go to that team's manager.
Read the full commitment : Safeguarding & protection from sexual exploitation and abuse
In practice
- Child safeguarding & PSEA policy in force
- Vetting and induction before deployment
- Signed code of conduct for every field worker
- Reporting channel independent of the assignment team
- Named safeguarding focal point
Informed consent is obtained and recorded from every adult respondent and from the guardian of every child, with child-appropriate assent alongside it. Respondents are told who commissioned the study, what the data will be used for, and that refusal carries no consequence for any entitlement they receive. Evaluation designs involving children or vulnerable groups go to independent ethical review.
Read the full commitment : Research ethics, consent and respondent dignity
In practice
- Recorded informed consent; guardian consent and child assent
- Purpose and commissioning body disclosed to respondents
- Refusal without consequence, stated explicitly
- Independent ethical review on sensitive designs
- Enumerator training on respondent dignity
We document the full path of a record: collection on device, encrypted transfer, storage with role-based access, retention period, and destruction. Direct identifiers are stripped before any dataset moves beyond the assignment team. Where a financier applies its own data-protection regime, we work to that regime and evidence it.
Read the full commitment : Data protection and information security
In practice
- Documented collection → transfer → storage → retention → destruction
- Encrypted transfer; role-based access control
- Anonymisation before dataset release
- Device-level control on CAPI hardware
- Alignment to the financier's data regime where specified
A financier is entitled to know what the data cost. We track and can report cost per completed interview, sampling efficiency, field productivity and rework arising from quality failures. Publishing these makes our proposals comparable on more than headline price — and it is the discipline that stops a low bid becoming an expensive dataset.
In practice
- Cost per completed interview
- Sampling efficiency and design effect
- Field productivity by district and team
- Rework rate from quality failures
- Economy / efficiency / effectiveness reporting on request
Where the contract permits, we publish the instrument, the sampling note and the methodology annex alongside the finding. A number that cannot be interrogated is a number that will eventually be disputed. This is also how a national firm demonstrates that its methods, not just its access, are worth buying.
Read the full commitment : Open data, transparency and reuse
In practice
- Instruments published where cleared
- Sampling and weighting notes released with findings
- Methodology annexes as standalone documents
- Anonymised datasets deposited where the client agrees
- Corrections issued publicly
0 of 6 commitments currently have a signed document and a named responsible officer published against them. The remainder are stated as operating practice; no document is offered for download until it exists.