Catalyzing Evidence-to-Policy Partnerships with Governments

Two women holding bags of rice with their non-cash food assistance cards.

J-PAL is undertaking a significant expansion of its efforts to forge evidence-to-policy partnerships with innovative-minded governments in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia seeking to use rigorous research to inform their social policies and programs.

Community Jameel, the international organization advancing science to help communities thrive in a rapidly changing world, and Co-Impact, a global organization focused on building just and equitable systems in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, are founding partners in this expansion effort.

Jameel & Co-Impact logos

About the Grant

Through this work, J-PAL is partnering with governments to advance our shared goals of improving lives of people living in poverty through catalyzing governments’ adoption at scale of specific evidence-based policies and programs, and institutionalizing a broader culture of evidence- and data-driven policymaking in government systems. To achieve this impact, we work across three key areas.

Research
Evidence co-creation and use

Facilitate the co-creation, and catalyze the use, of timely, relevant, high-quality evidence and data to understand local challenges and to inform the design and implementation of locally-grounded policies and programs to address them.

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Capacity-building

Build the capacity of government officials at all levels to generate and use evidence and to leverage administrative data to improve program and policy design and implementation.

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Systems-strengthening

Support governments in strengthening processes, structures, policies, and systems to enable and incentivize evidence- and data-driven policymaking throughout their institutions.

Evidence Co-creation and Use

We facilitate the co-creation, and catalyze the use, of timely, relevant, high-quality evidence and data to understand local challenges and to inform the design and implementation of locally-grounded policies and programs to address them.

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Adam Osman standing in front of three women presenting

Growing network of researchers

J-PAL’s growing research network—over 600 affiliated researchers—anchors the production and application of policy-relevant evidence. Members of this network support E2P Partnerships in a variety of important ways—engaging in dialogues with policymakers to determine how existing evidence may help them solve their policy challenges and brainstorming new evidence-informed policy innovations; collaborating with government partners to co-create evidence; and providing scientific advice to governments as they plan for and adopt an evidence-based intervention at scale. 

Woman at computer looking at J-PAL's evaluation summary section of the website

Evidence summaries and syntheses across 10 sectors

We develop digestible, policymaker-friendly summaries and syntheses, such as our Evaluation Summaries; our Policy Insights that highlight lessons emerging across multiple evaluations and the mechanisms that help explain the results.

J-PAL South Asia

Government of Punjab partners with Breakthrough and J-PAL South Asia to implement gender sensitization curriculum in all government schools

The Government of Punjab’s Department of School Education launched a partnership today with Breakthrough and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia to

J-PAL Middle East and North Africa

Global Evidence for Egypt Conference: Using Evidence to Inform Decision-Making

J-PAL South Asia

Government of Odisha partners with Breakthrough and J-PAL South Asia to introduce gender equity program in 23,000 government schools in the state

The Government of Odisha’s Department of School and Mass Education today announced its partnership with Breakthrough and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South

Capacity Building

We build the capacity of government officials at all levels to generate and use evidence and to leverage administrative data to improve program and policy design and implementation.

Man standing at chalkboard in front of classroom

Flagship training programs

Evaluating Social Programs (ESP) and a variety of customized trainings and live and self-paced online courses on topics, such as Measuring Health Outcomes in Field Surveys. Although several of our trainings are offered globally, we adapt them regionally by creating new case studies that can speak to the concerns of policymakers in specific regions, translate materials into local languages to reach a wider audience of trainees, and adjust the timing, delivery, and location of the course to the partner’s needs.

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Broader suite of capacity-building approaches through partnerships 

Our partnership in Morocco with Harvard’s Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) leverages EPoD’s Building Capacity to Use Research Evidence (BCURE) approach. Likewise, our partnership with the CLEAR Initiative in India engages in broader capacity-building on monitoring and evaluation. 

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Egypt Impact Lab: An embedded lab in the Ministry of Planning, Economic Development, and International Cooperation

The Egypt Impact Lab seeks to strengthen evidence-informed policy and improve development outcomes for Egyptians.

J-PAL Middle East and North Africa J-PAL Southeast Asia J-PAL Global

Tailoring training modules to strengthen evaluation partnerships: J-PAL’s custom courses

This is the second blog in a series illustrating stories of how J-PAL’s training courses have built new policy and research partnerships and strengthened existing ones to advance

J-PAL Global

Building skills to advance impact evaluation: J-PAL’s Evaluating Social Programs course

In this blog, we highlight two notable examples of how Evaluating Social Programs courses led to high-impact research and policy partnerships, while recognizing the impressive

Systems Strengthening

We support governments in strengthening processes, structures, policies, and systems to enable and incentivize evidence- and data-driven policymaking throughout their institutions. Learn more about institutionalizing evidence use

J-PAL South Asia

Institutionalizing a culture of evidence-informed policymaking in Tamil Nadu

A long-standing partnership between the Government of Tamil Nadu and J-PAL in India has helped institutionalize the use of evidence in decision making and build a culture of

J-PAL Latin America and the Caribbean

A government innovation lab to improve education

With support from J-PAL and IPA, the Ministry of Education in Peru created a dedicated unit to identify, test, and scale low-cost interventions to improve educational outcomes.

Evidence to Policy Partnerships Worldwide

We are expanding our Evidence to Policy partnerships with governments in seven countries across four regions: South Asia (India), Southeast Asia (Indonesia), Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico, Brazil), and the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan). Learn more about pathways from evidence to policy change.

Map displaying evidence to policy partnerships worldwide

Recently in the News

J-PAL Southeast Asia

Egyptian and Indonesian governments exchange best practices for evidence-based policymaking

A high-level Egyptian delegation of 15 representatives from various government entities participated in a learning exchange visit in Jakarta, Indonesia from 27-31 May 2024. The

J-PAL Southeast Asia J-PAL Middle East and North Africa

Building effective social protection programs through government and researcher partnerships: Reflections from a MENA-SEA South-South Learning Journey

In a critical moment for global social protection systems, policymakers from Egypt and Indonesia recently came together in Jakarta for the groundbreaking event, South-South

J-PAL South Asia

Ministry of Rural Development partners with J-PAL South Asia as it expands ‘Samaveshi Aajeevika’ across India

The Government of India’s Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has brought the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia at IFMR on board as a knowledge partner on

J-PAL South Asia

Interactive curriculum to reshape gender norms

In India, the state governments of Punjab and Odisha are scaling up an evidence-based gender transformative education program in government schools with the NGO Breakthrough

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