Following the success of the first request for proposals, BIGD’s Women’s Economic Empowerment and Digital Finance (WEE-DiFine) Initiative has launched a call dedicated to pilot, measurement, and qualitative studies, with small grants of up to USD 50,000 available.
Why pilot, measurement, and qualitative studies?
Pilot studies allow researchers to evaluate a program on a smaller scale to explore the feasibility of an intervention and to identify challenges that might emerge on a pathway to scale. Pilot studies also provide preliminary data which can be leveraged to raise funding to scale promising opportunities.
Rigorously measuring women’s economic empowerment can be a complex and multifaceted process. Conducting measurement studies through field surveys in the context of DFS and WEE can serve as an effective way to develop novel measurement techniques or adapt existing measures for different cultural contexts or populations.
High-quality, rigorous qualitative research can be used to disentangle the causal mechanisms of an RCT or shed light on specific themes to inform the Initiative’s research agenda. The Initiative will consider two kinds of qualitative studies to foster evidence in this space. Research teams can seek WEE-DiFine funding to 1) advance high-quality, mixed-method research by adding expertly designed qualitative research methods to existing projects, or 2) conduct standalone pre-pilot qualitative research that may influence subsequent studies exploring the pathways between DFS and WEE.
Request for Proposals
Researchers interested in submitting a proposal are encouraged to review the Small Grants RFP, the associated white paper, and the budgetary guidelines. The deadline for proposal submissions is May 31, 2021.
