Our Mission
Laterite is a data, research and technical advisory firm that helps clients understand and analyse complex development challenges.
We define ourselves by our ability to embrace and deploy innovative research technologies and methodologies. We use an anti-disciplinary approach, borrowing methods not only from econometrics but other fields as well. Incorporating these latest innovations in our project work and introducing them to our clients motivates us. We strive to play an active role in transforming development research, to make it more rigorous and impactful.
We believe that impact is a long-term endeavour that requires being embedded in the local context. It requires building a local team, collecting high-quality primary data, understanding the context, establishing close working relationships with key players and understanding their constraints and motivations. As a result, we only conduct research where we have a local presence.
Our Approach
Understand the Context
Our philosophy is that you need to have an excellent understanding of the local context in order to deliver good advice in the most efficient way. By only working in countries where we have a presence on the ground, Laterite continuously invests in improving its understanding of the local context.
Work with Structure, Reason with Evidence
From design through to analysis, we aim to solve problems and conduct our operations in a very structured way, while striking the right balance between high standards of analytical rigour and practical client-focused considerations. All the insights we provide are based on empirical evidence.
Innovate at Every Opportunity
With every new challenge and opportunity, we try to innovate, always with the objective of creating new and better ways of conducting research in low-resource country contexts. The Laterite Lab catalyses our research efforts and aims to equip our teams with new research methods and techniques.
Collaborate and Build Capacity
We can only achieve our goal of bringing high quality and localised research services to the countries we operate in, by collaborating closely with our clients and building the research capacity of our local teams and the organisations we work with.
