Gender and Economic Agency Request for Proposals

Overview

J-PAL’s Gender and Economic Agency (GEA) Initiative funds randomized evaluations of strategies to enhance women’s economic agency. In a unique opportunity, GEA broadened its focus to explore the causal relationship between women's economic empowerment and family planning as well as a broader range of topics in women's economic agency than in previous rounds.

Competitive research funding was available for full research projects, including add-on funding to existing full RCTs, and pilot studies. Applicants with questions should email [email protected].

Timeline

In 2025, GEA hosted one call for proposals from eligible researchers for full research projects and pilot studies. GEA's Winter 2025 RFP closed on March 17, 2025. 

Priority Themes

In a unique opportunity, GEA broadened its focus to explore the causal relationship between women's economic empowerment (WEE) and family planning as well as a broader range of topics in women's economic agency than in previous rounds. 

1. WEE and Family Planning. Understand the bi-directional causal relationship between women's economic empowerment and family planning, and the broader impact on women's and children's health outcomes, with a regional focus in Africa and South Asia.
   • Understanding how family planning impacts women's economic empowerment
   • Understanding how women's economic empowerment impacts family planning and women's and children's health outcomes
2. Women's Economic Agency and Livelihoods. Promote women's work and enhance women's economic agency across a wide range of topics and intervention types in Central America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

Please refer to our Request for Proposals Overview and the WEE and Family Planning Framing Paper for more information on potential research topics and questions that were of interest to GEA for this RFP.

Eligibility

Any J-PAL affiliate, J-PAL invited researcher, or J-PAL postdoc was eligible to apply. Ph.D. students who have a J-PAL affiliate or invited researcher as an advisor would also be eligible for funding. 

Application Instructions

WizeHive, the new grant management system J-PAL is using for our proposals, is more user-friendly. You could submit your application, including relevant attachments, through WizeHive. It did, however, require a new login. Please use the Application Instructions and follow the prompts in the links below to create a new login.

• For pilot studies
• For full randomized evaluation research projects

The GEA team notified you via WizeHive once we reviewed your LOI if you were invited to submit a full proposal. To facilitate your proposal development, we included reference application documents below that outline in detail all required information that applicants were asked when submitting a full proposal to GEA via our online portal system. You were welcome to begin drafting your proposal materials using these templates. Please, however, note that these reference documents were not to be completed or submitted to GEA for consideration.

General tips for proposal development

For general advice on developing a successful proposal, please visit our Research Resource page on grant proposals.