Budget Breakdown and Narrative
Budget Summary
The proposed core budget is ADA 58,000. At the current approximate ADA exchange rate of USD 0.23, this represents approximately USD 13,340. Given that ADA price may fluctuate between approval and project completion, all budget items are denominated in ADA and are not conditional on exchange rate.
PRISMA’s budget is lean relative to the scope of work because PRISMA’s existing network infrastructure substantially reduces the recruitment and access overhead typically associated with multi-region primary research. PRISMA is not building a field presence from scratch in these regions — it is activating an existing one.
Core Budget Breakdown
| Budget Category | ADA (Core Scope) | Approx. USD | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project Management & Coordination | 7,000 | ~$1,610 | Research lead time across 18 weeks; CPC checkpoint management; workplan administration; reporting |
| Regional Screening & Desk Research | 6,500 | ~$1,495 | RARF application to 8+ regional clusters; secondary source review; preliminary counterparty mapping; use-case hypothesis construction |
| Primary Research — Interviews & Expert Calls | 16,000 | ~$3,680 | Scheduling, preparation, and facilitation of 30–45 structured interviews and expert calls across three regional clusters and five respondent categories |
| Regional Network Access & Hub Coordination | 8,500 | ~$1,955 | Coordination costs for hub network activation in sub-Saharan Africa and LATAM; local facilitator engagement; hub logistics; ALJ facilitation design for primary research contexts |
| Regulatory & Compliance Landscape Research | 4,500 | ~$1,035 | Regulatory desk research across 3–4 priority regions; policy expert calls; local counsel consultation where accessible; regulatory summary drafting |
| Validation & Cross-Checking Sessions | 4,000 | ~$920 | CPC checkpoint facilitation; internal validation sessions; draft review cycles; respondent fact-check where required |
| Synthesis, Analysis & Framework Development | 5,500 | ~$1,265 | RARF score refinement; CASS classification; counterparty access register; cross-evidence synthesis; playbook architecture |
| Report Writing, Documentation & Deliverables | 4,000 | ~$920 | All core decision outputs; supporting appendices; evidence register; limitations register; public summary production |
| Ethics & Data Governance Infrastructure | 1,500 | ~$345 | Consent management; data storage and access controls; ethics brief preparation; deletion protocols |
| Contingency (~8.6%) | 5,000 | ~$1,150 | Access constraints requiring alternative recruitment; unexpected regulatory complexity; additional primary research interactions required for confidence improvement |
| TOTAL CORE SCOPE | 58,000 ADA | ~$13,340 |
Optional Stretch Scope — ADA 12,000
The following stretch-scope items are available at an additional ADA 12,000, priced separately. None are required for the core deliverables:
| Stretch Scope Item | ADA | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Deeper country-level diligence for one priority market | 4,000 | Additional primary research and regulatory depth for the highest-scoring regional cluster |
| Local-language primary research in one region | 3,000 | Translation support and local-language facilitation for one priority region where English-language coverage is insufficient |
| Pilot design templates for top-ranked plays | 3,000 | Structured pilot design templates for the two highest-scoring entry plays, specifying pilot scope, owner requirements, success metrics, and timeline |
| Monitoring dashboard specification | 2,000 | Specification for a lightweight monitoring framework allowing CPC to track adoption signal progress in priority regions after the research concludes |
| TOTAL OPTIONAL STRETCH SCOPE | 12,000 ADA | ~$2,760 |
Budget Defence
The budget is structured to maximise evidence value per ADA spent. The largest single line — ADA 16,000 for primary research — reflects the non-negotiable reality that desk research alone cannot answer the counterparty accessibility, delivery capacity, and genuine adoption signal questions that the RFP demands. Without this investment, the research would produce a descriptive market report, not a decision architecture.
The regional network access line — ADA 8,500 — reflects real costs that a conventional research firm would face at a much higher level, given that they would need to build regional access from scratch. PRISMA’s existing hub relationships reduce this substantially; this line covers the coordination, facilitation, and logistics of activating an existing network, not building a new one.
The contingency line — ADA 5,000 — is explicitly for two scenarios: first, if access constraints require alternative recruitment strategies (adding respondent categories to compensate for inaccessible institutional actors); and second, if preliminary findings identify a regional opportunity with unusually high strategic value that warrants additional primary research for improved confidence. It will not be deployed without CPC visibility and agreement.