This study was conducted in three states: Lagos, Kaduna and Kano. It utilized a qualitative design that comprised Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), In-Depth Interviews (IDIs), and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) to understand the context of demand-related factors that characterized the determinants of utilization patterns for service uptake among small-scale farmers, extension officers, input suppliers amongst others. This data improved the understanding of socio-economic factors influencing agricultural practices.

The Policy Innovation Centre, in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and Albright Stonebridge Group, is committed to empowering women in agriculture by addressing systemic barriers and promoting inclusive growth.

Guided by the National Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Policy, we work to increase female participation in agriculture, realign financing schemes to support women and youth-owned agribusinesses, and ensure the inclusion of women across the agricultural value chain.

Our initiatives focus on implementing gender-responsive policies, such as revising land tenure systems, improving access to credit, and establishing equitable input distribution systems.

From 2023 to 2024, our research explored gender-based constraints in adopting CSA technologies in Nigeria. This study evaluated access to agricultural resources, adoption rates of CSA practices, and barriers such as financial limitations, market inaccessibility, and mobility restrictions. The research provided policy recommendations to enhance gender equity in agriculture, ensuring both men and women benefit from sustainable farming innovations.

This research, conducted in Edo State, examined the adoption of DFS among rural women farmers and the impact of financial inclusion on their economic stability. The study analyzed barriers such as limited access to banking services, gender norms, and digital literacy, while also identifying enablers that can drive DFS adoption. The findings are currently being used to develop targeted interventions that enhance financial access for smallholder farmers and strengthen agri-business development.

This project funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa was designed to assess pre-election activities, programs and policies of the government in the political/governance and economic sectors using a human rights-based approach and generate lessons and insights to set a post-election policy agenda for the incoming national government.

The BiNTA Fellowship is a behavioural reengineering initiative of the PIC's Behavioural Innovation Lab aimed at strengthening anti-corruption changemakers' capacity to leverage behavioural insights in disrupting the socially normative status of corruption in Nigeria. With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the inaugural edition of the fellowship is supporting thirty fellows to conceptualize, design and execute behaviorally informed strategies to address corruption.

This project will provide concrete guidance to implementing agencies on considering the intersectional nature of anti-corruption target populations to increase durable behaviour change. Specifically, it will explore how gender and faith norms interact with social norms that drive corrupt patterns of behaviours within specific reference groups and reinforce inequity and exclusion or inhibit anti-corruption action. The Corruption, Justice and Legitimacy Program (CJL) at Besa Global, in partnership with the Policy Innovation Centre is implementing this research project.

This scoping assessment was implemented at federal and sub-national levels (Lagos, Kaduna, and Kano states) and explored the feasibility and acceptability (specifically, the intra-coalition pragmatic legitimacy) of advocacy coalitions for women’s health in Nigeria.

The project, which lasted from October 2023 to May 2024 was made possible by the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and enabled the PIC to provide innovative technical solutions to gaps in women’s health advocacy, particularly at federal level, laying the foundation for an advocacy stakeholder’s relationship management platform.

PIC aims to complete and scale this catalytic work in the near future. In the meantime, findings from this scoping assessment continue to inform investments and policies in the women’s health advocacy ecosystem.

This FCDO-funded initiative aimed to address digital economy challenges and support the continuous growth of an enabling regulatory condition for inclusive digital transformation in implementing states (Edo, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Lagos).

The project supported inclusive digital transformation for the most vulnerable and the operationalisation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030, focusing on developmental regulations, digital services development and promotion, digital society and emerging technologies, and indigenous content promotion and development at the national and state levels.

The project aims to support an integrated digital ecosystem and enable a policy environment through the curation of digital policies and protocols to drive sustainable digital capabilities and growth within the Edo state government and inclusive socioeconomic development across the state. This project also assesses barriers to digital solution adoption within government and citizens, particularly vulnerable populations providing insights into programmatic interventions that can accelerate digital adoption and socioeconomic development.

The Nigeria AI Collective is a pioneering community of practice dedicated to ensuring that AI development and adoption in Nigeria are safe, ethical, and impactful. Initiated by the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy, the Collective operates within an enabling policy environment that fosters responsible AI governance and innovation.

Supported by Luminate, Ford Foundation, and AI Collaborative, the Collective is led by Data Science Nigeria, Lagos Business School, and the Centre for Journalism, Innovation & Development, and is coordinated by the Policy Innovation Centre. Our mission is to drive ethical AI governance, innovation, and capacity building—empowering Nigeria to shape the future of AI both locally and globally.

Through strategic collaboration across civil society, academia, and the AI ecosystem, we champion AI for the public good, policy development, and responsible adoption.

• Shaping Ai’s future in Nigeria
• Fostering Ethical AI Governance & Innovation
• Building Capacity for Inclusive AI Devlopement

The PIC is implementing a 3-year Mac-Arthur Foundation-funded grant titled ‘Harnessing Behavioural Insight to Improve Transparency in Nigeria’. This project aims to support an ecosystem of state and non-state actors with the capacity and capability to drive behaviourally informed anticorruption reforms across sectors in Nigeria.

This project also seeks to strengthen the capacity of transparency, governance, and accountability organizations in Nigeria through a learning series and the implementation of hands-on behavioural interventions. Based on identified gaps from a training and capacity building needs assessment conducted, the BIL developed a four-phase BI for accountability and transparency curriculum. The BIL team partnered with transparency and accountability experts to co-create and test modular content/curriculum for sector-specific modules. The BIL curriculum development strategy entailed using locally relevant case studies within the Nigerian context.

The BIL led the first Behavioural Insights Transparency/Anti-corruption workshop in June 2022, with over 50 organisations attending (government, civil society, faith-based organisations, development partners, private sectors and media organisations). PIC currently hosts this workshop as an e-course on its Learning Management System (LMS).