Begin with the decision the NGO must make
The first question for an NGO in Botswana is not how many interviews it can finish, but what evidence it needs before intervention activities change local conditions. Baseline findings should inform targeting, resource allocation and later outcome tracking. Research in Gaborone and Francistown can help test the assumptions behind the programme, provided the study clearly separates those city-level findings from conclusions about the wider country.
Begin by questioning the programme assumptions rather than accepting the logframe uncritically. If an NGO expects improved uptake, the baseline must examine existing service access, trust, cost and behaviour, not only awareness. If the intended result concerns income, collection should account for seasonal variation and multiple earning sources. Make the key decisions explicit: what finding would require redesign, what subgroup requires additional support, and when the team must receive results for them to matter.
Understand how research geography works in Botswana
Fieldwork should follow the administrative vocabulary used in Botswana: districts, city councils and other local authorities. These structures help researchers identify the correct boundaries, local gatekeepers and likely sources of population lists, but they do not automatically supply a complete probability sampling frame. First establish which boundaries apply to the actual programme area, then verify maps and household or facility counts. Administrative labels should be used only after checking their exact local meaning and relationship to the study population.
Define the target population and sampling frame
The sample plan must say what the estimates will represent. An NGO might need one estimate across programme communities, separate estimates for women and men, or a comparison of exposed and unexposed participants. These are different sample-design problems. Selection should not be delegated to interviewer convenience. Build a frame, test its completeness, document clustering and calculate practical design effects. Where populations are mobile or records outdated, conduct listing or frame verification before drawing respondents.
Baseline research in Gaborone: designing the first city sample
In Gaborone, where the city functions as a government and professional-services centre, a baseline might start with an inventory of programme catchments and service points. If the intervention concerns livelihoods and local employment, the field team should test measures of income sources, employment quality, seasonality and access to productive assets. Interviewer routes should deliberately cover selected neighbourhoods rather than concentrating around accessible offices and major roads. Compare the register of intended participants with people who actually use services; discrepancies may expose targeting or access problems. Whether the unit is a household, young person, facility or beneficiary must remain consistent through analysis.
Baseline research in Francistown: testing a contrasting city context
Francistown deserves an independent field plan because it is a northern commercial node with a different business catchment. Before importing the Gaborone questionnaire unchanged, conduct a short cognitive pilot and verify where the target population resides, travels and receives services. The sample allocation should reflect the stated comparison question, not an arbitrary equal split made for convenience. If the NGO needs a comparison between the two cities, agree the minimum precision and subgroup coverage needed. Findings should describe the observed difference without attributing it automatically to geography or programme performance.
Build indicators that can be measured again
Programme dashboards often group together activity counts, outputs and outcomes, but a baseline primarily needs interpretable starting values for the intended results. Define what counts as a person reached, a household with access, a user satisfied or a facility functioning. For sensitive measures, confirm privacy before selecting a mode. Set out missing-value rules and calculation conventions in advance. This protects the study from retrospective threshold-setting once the team has seen the data.
Choose appropriate survey and qualitative methods
Build a mixed-method design around the research questions. Structured interviews may estimate the prevalence of a condition in a defined population; in-depth discussions can uncover how respondents interpret the issue. Site observation can test whether reported services exist and are usable. A phone-only design may miss participants with limited ownership or connectivity, so consider whether targeted in-person coverage is essential. Before fieldwork, reconcile questionnaires, consent language, qualitative guides and indicator definitions so the evidence fits together.
Translate and pilot instruments for local respondents
Tools and consent scripts should be tested in English and Setswana. A language that works for a formal meeting may not be the clearest language for a household interview, and bilingual respondents may switch vocabulary when describing sensitive experiences. Prepare a glossary for core constructs, reconcile translations with the source questionnaire and role-play difficult questions. Recruit interviewers for language competence and cultural familiarity, not only device skills. Translation changes need recorded approval so that future midline and endline rounds can preserve conceptual equivalence.
Design field operations around actual access conditions
Operationally, widely dispersed settlements complicate extrapolation from city samples. Plan interviewer assignments, transport, safe operating hours, supervision and escalation around this reality. An initial reconnaissance visit can check listing feasibility, accessibility, the actual duration of an interview and any mismatch between administrative maps and lived settlement boundaries. A rigorous pilot should include sample-selection rehearsal, consent practice, skip-logic tests and mock data submission. Budget for replacements that comply with the original selection procedure rather than allowing opportunistic substitution when a respondent is absent.
Protect consent, privacy and vulnerable participants
Informed consent should explain the study purpose, voluntary participation, the expected length of contact and the treatment of personal information. Beneficiaries must not assume that declining an interview will affect their assistance. Collect only identifiers needed for follow-up, store contact lists separately from analytical data, and restrict access according to role. Sensitive subjects may require private interview spaces, interviewer matching or referral procedures. Review applicable permissions and data-protection obligations locally before fieldwork rather than relying on a generic pan-African consent script.
Check quality while fieldwork is still active
A strong fieldwork control room watches more than the number of completes. It tracks sample progress, refusals, subgroup balance, interview duration, interviewer-level anomalies and unresolved incidents. Supervisors should review records daily while corrective action is possible. Back-check a defined selection of interviews, protect respondent confidentiality and investigate rather than automatically punish statistical outliers. Keep a log of tool changes, retraining and replacements so the final analysis can explain exactly what happened in the field.
Analyse change without overstating causal claims
Before writing the narrative, reconcile sample outcomes, missing data and indicator calculations. Tables should distinguish raw counts, valid percentages and weighted estimates as appropriate. Discuss plausible contextual explanations without attributing causes that were not tested. A useful final discussion links each finding to an operational question, such as targeting, access, implementation capacity or future monitoring. Archive the questionnaire, codebook, cleaning syntax and sampling notes so the next round can reproduce the approach.
Turn baseline evidence into action in Botswana
For a hypothetical NGO programme focused on livelihoods and local employment, the useful deliverable is not simply a table showing income sources, employment quality, seasonality and access to productive assets. It is an explanation of which barriers can be addressed through the intervention and which reflect factors outside programme control. If participants know a service exists but rarely use it, explore cost, location, opening time, quality, trust and social norms. Recommend a response only when the evidence distinguishes among those explanations. The baseline should also register external shocks and programme exposure dates to protect later interpretation.
At the end of the exercise, the NGO should be able to say what the baseline means for Botswana, what it means specifically for Gaborone and Francistown, and what it does not mean. Set a schedule for repeating core indicators, preferably at comparable seasonal periods. Keep the sample frame, contact protocol, questionnaire versions, interview-date records and calculation syntax. Use a short management session to decide whether targeting, staffing, communication or referral practices should change. Record those decisions so the endline can examine both outcomes and the adaptation process.
What a useful baseline report should deliver
A strong Botswana baseline report should provide a clearly defined study population, an honest sampling account, accepted-interview totals, response outcomes, reproducible indicators and accessible recommendations. City comparisons should carry their own denominators and limitations. The report can be supported by a clean dataset, fieldwork memo, codebook and monitoring matrix, for internal analysis and subsequent measurement rounds. Any gaps in coverage should be visible so implementers can decide whether further listing or targeted qualitative inquiry is needed before expanding activities.
How Surveysphere Africa can support
Surveysphere Africa helps NGOs and development organisations design baseline studies, define indicators, plan samples, manage fieldwork, verify data quality and turn findings into actionable programme decisions. For work involving Gaborone, Francistown or wider coverage in Botswana, the research design should begin with the intended decision and the population it needs to represent, then adapt responsibly to the local context.
Related guidance
For the continent-wide view, read our guide to baseline, midline and endline studies.
Our services for research in Botswana
We run research across African markets. Start with these services for work in Botswana:
- Monitoring, evaluation and learning in Botswana: Baseline, midline, endline and programme evaluation.
- Social and development research in Botswana: Qualitative and quantitative studies for social and development programmes.
We also offer: Outsourced fieldwork, Market and consumer research, Public health research, Policy, economic and institutional research, Data analytics and insights visualisation.
