This is the first publication in a series exploring the ways scholars 
can balance methodology, budgeting, and fieldwork when completing a 
research project in the African peacebuilding landscape.

Introduction

When designing a research project in African peacebuilding, there is a tendency to treat methodology and budgeting as two separate silos. Researchers draft their methodological approach to satisfy academic rigor, then plug the resulting logistical needs into a spreadsheet to satisfy a grant-making or award committee. This separation can create a disconnect between methodological ambition and financial feasibility.[1] But in the complex, dynamic, and often fragile contexts of African peacebuilding—characterized by limited grants, insecure environments, difficult terrain, and weak infrastructure—this disconnect can be fatal to a project. If the research methods and the budget are not closely aligned, researchers face the risk of either compromising the quality of data or frustrating their local partners.[2] The budget is not merely a financial document; it is an operational expression of research methodology. Recognizing this alignment is the first step toward producing credible, ethical, and feasible peacebuilding research.

The Shift in Peacebuilding Research

To understand why this alignment matters, we must recognize how the field has evolved. In conflict-affected settings, Mac Ginty notes that peacebuilding research has increasingly recognized the importance of “everyday peace,”[3] hyperlocal practices, and the agency of individuals and communities. As a result, researchers are no longer simply analyzing formal peace agreements;  they are expected to study how communities navigate conflict, manage local disputes, and build resilience on the ground. As Autesserre[4] demonstrated, understanding peacebuilding at the frontlines requires greater attention to grassroots actors, local knowledge, and bottom-up approaches to conflict resolution, which is time-consuming, resource-demanding, and relationship-dependent. This shift demands deep, contextual, and often qualitative methodologies. You cannot capture the nuances of everyday peace with a rushed, highly structured survey. Those methodological demands dictate a very specific financial footprint.

Let Methodology Lead: The Activity-Based Budget

A common budgeting error is to establish a total funding ceiling first and then attempt to fit the methodology within it. A better approach is the reverse: design the minimum methodologically credible study first, identify its operational requirements, and then construct the budget around those requirements. Instead of beginning with generic headings such as “transport” or “per diem,” researchers should develop an activity-based research budget. Start with methodological activities—key informant interviews, focus group discussions, household surveys, and community observation—and trace each activity to its resource requirements. For example, a study examining local peacebuilding mechanisms will require specific allocations for enumerator training, mobile data collection tools, venue facilitation, and translation. This creates a defensible chain: research question, method, activity, resources, cost, and budget justification. Every major expenditure can be traced directly back to a methodological requirement, making the proposal far more convincing to reviewers. Furthermore, researchers must remember that the most expensive methodology is not necessarily the most rigorous; the objective should be methodological adequacy instead of methodological excess.

The Hidden Costs: Ethics, Security, and Local Partners

In African peacebuilding-related fieldwork, the line between methodology and ethics is blurred, and both have profound budgetary implications. Participants may discuss displacement, violence, trauma, or experiences with armed actors. Protecting them requires private interview locations, secure data storage, trained interviewers, and in some cases, referral mechanisms for psychological support.[5] These are not optional administrative extras; they are methodological requirements that cost money.[6] Ethical research, particularly within community-based participatory frameworks, demands culturally appropriate engagement and strict “do no harm” protocols.

Local research assistants in peacebuilding research that provide language translation, cultural interpretation, and community access are indispensable. Yet they are sometimes treated as cheap logistical resources rather than as research professionals, leading to overwork and inadequate compensation. A realistic budget must specify assistant remuneration, training, and transportation, ensuring local participation is built into the methodology from the beginning as a matter of decolonial and ethical practice. Furthermore, conducting research in conflict-affected environments requires secure transport, communication devices, and contingency planning for sudden road closures or political shifts. Security and ethics are deeply interconnected in conflict research, and the budget must reflect these realities.[7]

Lessons from the Field: Practical Strategies

These principles become pertinent when grounded in real fieldwork experience, such as the lessons learned from research in Ethiopia. A major structural challenge in many African higher institutions is the incompatibility between the desire for impactful research and limited, often delayed, research financing. Inflation and delayed budget disbursements can severely disrupt fieldwork plans. Consequently, logistics strongly influence methodological decisions. Instead of  making repeated visits to the same communities, researchers can organize data collection so that several activities occur during a single trip,  scheduling household surveys, interviews, and observations sequentially over a few days. Another vital strategy is resource pooling. Researchers from different projects conducting fieldwork in similar areas can coordinate schedules and share transportation, accommodation, and local guides without compromising research independence.

Digital technologies also offer emerging opportunities. Platforms such as KoboToolbox, Telegram, Google Forms, Google Meet, and WhatsApp have become valuable tools for recruiting participants, conducting surveys, conducting interviews and FGDs, conducting follow-up interviews, and verifying information.[8] Heywood, Ivey, and Meuter,[9] for instance, recommended  WhatsApp as an alternative means of engaging communities in conflict-affected areas when face-to-face research is restricted or impossible. For dispersed populations or busy professionals, virtual engagement can reduce travel costs and security concerns. However, these methods require careful attention to informed consent and sample bias, serving to complement rather than replace face-to-face engagement where trust is essential.

Design for Flexibility, Not Overambition

Fieldwork in Africa is unpredictable. A good peacebuilding research budget should therefore be flexible without becoming vague. Researchers are expected to prioritize the methodological components that are crucial over those that can be adjusted if funding or field conditions change. Allocating a contingency fund of fifteen to twenty percent is also recommended for unforeseen circumstances. A smaller, feasible, and rigorously implemented study is always better than an overambitious one that cannot be completed. Financial constraints must never become a justification for compromising research integrity. When budgets prove inadequate, the appropriate response is to revise the scope, negotiate adjustments, or document limitations, not to cut corners on data quality or ethical protections. Institutions and funders also share a responsibility: they should not reward researchers for promising more than their budgets and field realities can realistically deliver.

Conclusion

The central question in research budgeting must shift from “How can I fit my methodology into this grant budget ceiling?” to “What does credible research require?”

In African peacebuilding research, the quality of our work is not determined by the size of our budget, but by how intelligently we align our research questions, methods, logistics, and ethical responsibilities. A research budget should not be what remains after the methodology is designed. It should be the financial architecture that makes the methodology feasible.

NOTE: This essay draws on my contribution to the Fellows’ Panel at the 2026 APDD–Itumo Research Methods Workshop, held in Porto-Novo, Benin, from August 17 to 20, 2026.

 Endnotes

  1. Higdon, Joseph, and Robert Topp. 2004. “How to Develop a Budget for a Research Proposal.” Western Journal of Nursing Research 26 (8): 922–929. DOI:10.1177/0193945904269291
  2. Ibid.
  3. Mac Ginty, Roger. 2021. Everyday Peace: How So-Called Ordinary People Can Disrupt Violent Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197563397.001.0001.
  4. Autesserre, Séverine. 2021. The Frontlines of Peace: An Insider’s Guide to Changing the World. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197530351.001.0001
  5. Appiah, Richard. 2020. Community-based participatory research in rural African contexts: Ethico-cultural considerations and lessons from Ghana. Public Health Reviews, 41:27 DOI:10.1186/s40985-020-00145-2.
  6. Sriram, Chandra Lekha, John C. King, Julie Mertus, Olga Martin-Ortega, and Johanna Herman, eds. 2009. Surviving Field Research: Working in Violent and Difficult Situations. London: Routledge.
  7. Sangaré, Boukary, and Jaimie Bleck. 2020. “Challenges of Research in an Active Conflict Environment.” In Doing Fieldwork in Areas of International Intervention: A Guide to Research in Violent and Closed Contexts, edited by Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and Morten Bøås, 113–126. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
  8. Vahedi, Luissa, Najat Qushua, Ilana Seff, Michelle Doering, Carrie Stoll, Susan A. Bartels, and Lindsay Stark. 2023. “Methodological and Ethical Implications of Using Remote Data Collection Tools to Measure Sexual and Reproductive Health and Gender-Based Violence Outcomes among Women and Girls in Humanitarian and Fragile Settings: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review of Peer-Reviewed Research.” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 24(4):2498-2529. DOI: 10.1177/15248380221097439
  9. Heywood, Emma, Beatrice Ivey, and Sacha Meuter. 2024. “Reaching Hard-to-Reach Communities: Using WhatsApp to Give Conflict-Affected Audiences a Voice.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 27, no. 1: 107–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2022.2117451