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Technical assistance for the people you fund.

We partner with challenge funds, development finance institutions, and impact investors to embed human-centred design directly into the companies, entrepreneurs, and innovators they support.

Talk to us about your programme → See our TA cases

You bring the capital. We bring the communities.

Challenge funds, innovation programmes, and impact investors back solutions that are meant to work for underserved communities. Too often, those solutions stall. Not because the funding ran out, but because the design missed the mark.

We come in as a technical assistance partner. Our teams work directly with the companies and innovators you back, in their markets, using design research, field testing, and coaching to close the gap between good intentions and real adoption.

How we work

Two ways we work as a TA partner.

01 / Challenge programmes & innovation funds

Supporting the innovators in your programme

You have identified the most promising solutions. We help them become stronger. Our teams work alongside grantees and competition finalists to sharpen their understanding of end users, test assumptions in real settings, and build HCD capacity that lasts beyond the programme.

02 / Impact investors & development finance

Strengthening the companies you back

Your portfolio companies are building in complex, underserved markets. We help them understand the people they are designing for, reduce adoption risk, and generate the user evidence that supports scale. From early-stage design research to post-investment capability building, we provide the TA that helps good investments perform.

15+
TA partnerships
delivered
4
Continents
62
Countries
in our network
18
Years
in the field
Our work

TA across programmes and portfolios.

From plastic waste entrepreneurs in West Africa to electric motorcycle riders in East Africa, we have worked as a TA partner on programmes and portfolios that span sectors, markets, and investment structures.

Copy of 0.Boda boda Rider charging a Roam Air light electric vehicle at a Roam Point in Waiyaki Way

How might Charging as a Service work for electric motorcycle riders in East Africa?
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Power to Youth: Strengthening Innovation from the Ground Up

Teams developed contextually grounded solution concepts, grew their creative confidence and became capable of designing and delivering innovations through a full HCD cycle, supported by Proportion Global’s local expertise.
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Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Ethiopia.

Afriplastics Challenge: providing innovation support to African entrepreneurs tackling plastic waste problems.

Participants advanced from assumptions to evidence-based solutions tested with real users. Semi-finalists deepened clarity on core challenges and opportunities, while finalists refined prototypes and executed pilots that strengthened investment readiness. The innovation support cluster contributed to a cohort of ventures better positioned to scale impact across Africa’s plastics ecosystem.
IMG 20250616 WA0040
Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.

SPRING Accelerator – Design Research for women-focused companies

Twenty enterprises gained deep user insights and clear direction on how to enhance their impact on girls and women. Examples include onboarding farmers into rabbit farming for Himalayan Rabbit Nepal, redesigning mobile-money agent models for Khalti, and strengthening the viability of Women in Digital’s ICT-skills training for women. The process equipped companies with actionable strategies grounded in the lived realities of their beneficiaries
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Kenya and Nigeria

CFYE – Human-Centered Design Coaching of African Companies

Thirty companies in Kenya and Nigeria now actively apply HCD to strengthen scale-up strategies that generate youth employment. Kenyan food-processing entrepreneurs validated new product concepts and discovered customers would pay higher prices than assumed, boosting viability and farmer margins. A Nigerian digital-payments company redesigned both its customer journey and agent-onboarding process, reducing friction and improving performance. Following these successes, Proportion has been contracted to support all future CFYE cohorts across Africa for the next three years.
Let's talk

Running a programme or portfolio that needs design support?

Tell us about the companies or innovators you are backing. A 30-minute call is the fastest way to find out whether we are the right technical assistance partner.

Talk to us about your programme

  • 30 minutes. No cost.
  • Direct with a senior design lead.
  • An honest view on fit, fast.
Book a call