A community evidence partner built for peer review.
Wakamoso operates as a research-grade partner for academic institutions working on community capability, poverty, inequality, and development questions across South Africa and the African continent.
Four partnership models.
Most academic partnerships with Wakamoso fall into one of four shapes. We scope and paper each one up front so roles, IP, publication, and data rights are clear from day one.
1. Co-investigator role on a funded study
Wakamoso joins an academic-led study as co-investigator, delivering community data collection through the SACCS instrument (or a study-specific instrument) and sharing authorship on outputs.
2. Data-access agreement for secondary analysis
Researchers access anonymised, ward-aggregated SACCS data for secondary analysis under a data-use agreement that specifies purpose, scope, retention, and attribution.
3. Commissioned community research
A university, research institute, or individual researcher commissions Wakamoso to run a specific community study at ward level, with outputs delivered in a form ready for academic publication or grant reporting.
4. Methodology partnership
Wakamoso works with the institution on instrument design, cross-walking against international frameworks, or validation studies — in support of the institution's own research programme.
Use Wakamoso in your thesis.
Masters and Doctoral candidates running community-level research on African questions can partner with Wakamoso in ways tailored to thesis work: scope your supervisor can see, protocols your ethics board will clear, and community-grounded data that holds up under examination.
The offer is open to candidates at South African institutions and to international candidates whose thesis fieldwork sits in Africa. Distance candidates are welcome — the WhatsApp instrument runs remotely and doesn’t require the candidate to be in country for collection.
Secondary analysis of SACCS data
Access anonymised, ward-aggregated community capability data under a student data-use agreement. A fit for quantitative chapters on capability, inequality, poverty, development, or community wellbeing — with a clear attribution and publication path.
Primary fieldwork at ward level
Commission a scoped community study aligned to the thesis question, using the SACCS instrument or a study-specific extension. Wakamoso handles fieldwork and delivers a clean dataset within a timeline that fits the candidature.
Methodology and ethics support
Instrument cross-walk against international frameworks (UNDP HDI, OPHI MPI, Afrobarometer, DHS, MICS, SDG monitoring), IRB / research-ethics submission narrative, and methodology-chapter material the candidate can adapt into the thesis.
Supervisor and institution alignment
Scope, deliverables, IP, and co-authorship are papered up front against the candidate’s supervisor and institution requirements — so the research partnership lives inside the candidature rather than alongside it.
Typical candidates: Masters, MPhil, PhD, DBA, and EdD researchers writing on African community development, capability, poverty, health, education, governance, or gender topics.
Peer-scrutiny-grade by design.
The SACCS instrument was built from the start to withstand academic review. It is anchored in the Capability Approach, validated against community evidence across five provinces, and cross-walked against the measurement frameworks reviewers already trust — MPI, Afrobarometer, DHS, MICS, FIES, SIGI, and the UN SDG Monitoring Framework.
Authorship of the framework is clear and citable — Dr. Mélani Prinsloo, Wakamoso / CDI, 2026. Published versions of the instrument are marked with a version number so downstream citations are unambiguous.
Scope of current evidence
- Household capability profiling across 11 SACCS domains
- Ward-level geotagged data with explicit POPIA-compliant consent
- Tier One Survival Floor flags for community stress
- Community Capability Composite Index (CCCI) scoring
- Longitudinal DSTI-funded community-voice data from Mamelodi
- 2012 SACCS focus-group archive across five provinces, available for re-analysis
Talk to us about a research partnership.
We respond quickly to institutional enquiries. Tell us the study, the population, the timeline.
Request a conversation