How to recruit research participants in Africa

Begin with the decision the research has to help with, not with demographics. “People who sent money to family last month” is a better brief than “adults 25 to 40 in Accra or Nairobi”, because it describes the behaviour you want to learn about.

Then add only the details that change the answer: the city if your service is local, the phone if your app is Android-only, the job if you're building for traders. Every extra filter makes recruiting slower.

There are three common places to recruit, and each one suits a different kind of study:

• Your own customers: the quickest way to test something people already use. They know your product, so they're less useful for discovering new needs.
• Community groups and WhatsApp: churches, trader associations, campuses and friends of friends. Fast and cheap, but you tend to reach people like you.
• A research panel: people who have signed up to take part, with a profile you can read before you invite them. You reach people you would never have met, and you can see who turned up last time.

Whichever you use, keep a record of who took part. Talking to the same five people every month quietly bends your results.

A screener is a few questions people answer before they take part. It keeps out people who don't fit, so your sessions are spent on the right ones. Keep it to three to five questions.

• Ask what people do, not what they think. “Which mobile network are you on?” beats “Do you like mobile money?”
• Don't give away the right answer. If the only qualifying option is obviously the one you want, people will pick it.
• Offer a realistic “none of these” option, so people don't have to guess.

Decide in advance which answers qualify. That way choosing who to invite takes minutes, not an afternoon.

Pay people fairly for their time, and pay them quickly. In much of Africa, mobile money (M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, Orange Money and others) is what most people expect: it reaches them the same week without a bank account, and there's no voucher to lose.

On myUsersInsight, which is open in Ghana for now, a 30-minute call pays the participant GHS 80, and longer sessions pay more (prices as of November 2026, reviewed over time). You pay the rewards plus a 30% service charge, and checkout shows the full amount before you pay.

If someone joins and the call ends early, pay them for the time they gave you. People remember how they were treated, and they tell their friends.

Most no-shows are forgotten sessions, not rude people. A few habits fix most of them:

• Let people pick a time that suits them, instead of offering one slot.
• Send a reminder a day before and an hour before, with the link to join.
• Make joining easy: a link that opens on a phone, with nothing to install.
• Say in the invite how long it takes and what they'll be paid.

myUsersInsight does these for you: participants book from your free times, everyone gets reminders a day and an hour before, and calls open in the browser. People who miss booked sessions get a strike, and two strikes in 30 days pauses them from new studies for 14 days.

1. Write down the decision the research has to make.
2. Describe the people in one sentence about what they do.
3. Choose where to recruit: customers, community or a panel.
4. Write a three-to-five question screener and mark which answers qualify.
5. Set a fair reward, paid to mobile money.
6. Let people pick a time, and remind them the day before and the hour before.
7. Invite a few more people than you need.