The main purpose of the current paper is to describe and discuss the scientific and practical implications of pursuing rigorous developmental research in a low-income, war-afflicted country such as DRC. In addition, the paper aims to explore the individual, household and school correlates of children's academic performance and mental health and socio-emotional wellbeing in a large sample of 2nd and 4th grade children form Katanga province. Results from these analyses will serve to identify key correlates of children's outcomes, which may be useful for relevant stockholders to improve their intervention strategies. In addition, estimation of intraclass correlations (ICCs) and of the amount of variance explained by the observed covariates will permit a calibration of the power analysis for the second wave of data collection. This is particularly important in a context in which there is a dearth of background information about children's academic, and especially, socio-emotional outcomes. (Contains 3 tables.)