Blog

As communities and governments find new and resilient ways to support families during the pandemic, schools have stood out as useful nodes within communities. For example, schools or Ministries of Education in many countries worldwide are providing much-needed nutritional support to families...

Field officers play a vital role in J-PAL Africa’s research projects. I interviewed three team members who have been involved in multiple J-PAL Africa research projects in Johannesburg over the years: Siyabonga Mudau, Nonhlanhla Hlanguza, and Joseph Shingange.

If governments don’t have a good picture of the health care needs of their citizens, how can they begin to address them effectively and efficiently? Governments around the world are all too familiar with this paradox, which can be particularly challenging if administrative data on health care...

Back in February of this year, J-PAL hit a milestone: our affiliates collectively conducted over 1,000 randomized evaluations. Six months later, we revisit this milestone with a new perspective.

Before COVID-19 arrived, social scientists had already established that cash transfers and mobile money are two of the most effective tools for assisting the poor and vulnerable in difficult conditions. Now is the time for governments to act on those findings, and to build up additional data for the...

Many countries have witnessed a surge in cases of domestic violence due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders. This phenomenon is especially concerning in Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia, where rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) are...

Economic recovery in the wake of COVID-19 will depend on the survival of businesses, yet many at-risk small businesses struggle to reach the SBA’s financial lifeboat. How might policymakers encourage emergency relief loan applications from the most vulnerable small businesses?

COVID-19 has disrupted and altered labor markets across the globe. Through the Jobs and Opportunity Initiative, we are supporting urgent research that helps us understand how vulnerable workers around the world are being impacted by COVID-19, and how to design effective policy responses to protect...