JEDDAH, 11 December 2007 — The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (J-PAL) has outlined plans to fight global poverty in continuation of its ongoing efforts.
J-PAL has been fighting global poverty by ensuring that policy decisions are based on scientific evidence. It has now intensified its efforts in realizing its objectives.
J-PAL improves the effectiveness of social programs and policy by providing rigorous and transparent evidence on development policy questions, according to J-PAL’s annual report.
“Our work helps decision-makers — in governments, aid agencies, NGOs and socially-oriented enterprises — to invest their resources to maximum effect; hence, it contributes to healthier and better educated children and less vulnerable and more productive communities,” the report said.
As J-PAL network of affiliate researchers grows, so does J-PAL’s capacity to evaluate the effectiveness of development programs.
During the past year the number of affiliate researchers in its network has grown to 18 professionals from prestigious universities in the United States.
The number of its ongoing evaluations stands at 50 in 15 countries. Several new evaluations were launched during 2007, including secondary education in rural Kenya, changing political decisions in Uttar Pradesh in India, empowering adolescent girls in rural Bangladesh and access to information in rural Sierra Leone.
Through the Jameel Fellowship, J-PAL supported Rick Hornbeck, a PhD student in economics, in his work on health insurance in rural India.”
This evaluation examines the effect of privately providing catastrophic health insurance to microfinance clients. The Jameel Fellowship also supported Danielle Li who has worked on health care in rural India.
Evaluations completed in 2007 yielded significant policy-relevant results, including the following: Food incentives prove highly successful in increasing immunization rates in remote areas in Rajasthan, women’s decision making power in households in Zambia and entrepreneurship training that improved the success of micro-credit in Peru.
J-PAL continued dissemination efforts through working papers and policy briefcases, attending and presenting at conferences of policymakers and their advisors, and disseminating results to government officials in countries where evaluations are conducted.
J-PAL published its second policy briefcase, “Making Schools Work for Marginalized Children,” in November 2006.
A third policy briefcase, on HIV/AIDS, came out in February 2007, and a fourth, on mass deworming of school-age children, will be out later this month. These publications reached more than 1,000 subscribers on J-PAL’s electronic and paper mailing lists, as well as many visitors of J-PAL’s website (www.povertyactionlab.com).
To disseminate J-PAL’s message and findings more effectively, lobby for the scale-up of successful results, and build the long-term relationships that are key to this effort, J-PAL is establishing two regional offices.
J-PAL formally launched J-PAL South Asia, based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research in Chennai, in July 2007. The formal launch of J-PAL Europe, which is based at the Paris School of Economics, is planned for Winter 2007-08.
In 2007, J-PAL conducted five separate sessions of the executive training course on randomized evaluation. J-PAL ran full, weeklong versions in Cambridge, Chennai (India) and Abuja (Nigeria), as well as two tailored courses at the request of the Millennium Challenge Corporation for its staff and partners at its offices in Washington DC.
A Randomization Toolkit for Development Economists, recently published by J-PAL members Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster and Michael Kremer, will guide economists who want to implement and design their own randomized evaluations.
In 2008, J-PAL plans to build on the successes of the last few years to further its mission of reducing poverty by helping build a base of rigorous evidence about what works for policy makers to respond to and build the capacity of others to help build this evidence.
A key focus of the coming year will be stepping up our work disseminating results and influencing policy as the number of studies reaching the results increases.
J-PAL South Asia at IFMR and J-PAL Europe will be key to this strategy. They will also be key to recruiting and involving J-PAL Europe. This will be key to this strategy.
They will also be key to recruiting and involving researchers outside the US in the effort to generate evidence on what works. The formal launch of J-PAL Europe is likely to be one of the highlights of 2008 for J-PAL.
