J-PAL Global is our head office and coordinates J-PAL’s worldwide research, policy, education, and capacity building work to promote our mission of ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.

We provide research and policy expertise in each of J-PAL’s 11 sectors: Agriculture; Crime, Violence, and Conflict; Education; Environment, Energy, and Climate Change; Finance; Firms; Gender; Health; Labor Markets; Political Economy and Governance, and Social Protection. This includes publishing evidence summaries and policy insights, and building partnerships to help policymakers understand how and when to apply evidence from randomized evaluations to policies and programs.

We create research resources to help design and implement randomized evaluations and to promote research transparency. We manage funding initiatives that support new and innovative evaluations in agricultural technology adoption, crime and violence, governance, government innovation, and post-primary education, among other topics.

We also lead executive trainings and university-level online courses, including the MicroMasters® Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP), that help build the capacity of researchers who produce evidence, policymakers and donors who use it, and advocates of evidence-informed policy.

J-PAL Global assists our Board of Directors and the Board’s Executive Committee in designing the strategy and policies that guide our operations worldwide. Our research, policy and communications, education, and training teams support the work of our seven regional offices at leading universities in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.

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Blog

Doubling down to build on an incredible 2019

2019 was a banner year for J-PAL on many fronts. We launched many exciting initiatives to expand the frontiers of research and evidence-informed policy, including in digital finance (Africa), government innovation (global), migrants and social inclusion (Europe), work of the future (North America)...

Update

J-PAL Co-Founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo Awarded Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) co-founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, with longtime J-PAL affiliate Michael Kremer, were jointly awarded the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The prize was awarded “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”

Blog

Announcing J-PAL’s new Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action (IDEA) Initiative

Around the world, vast amounts of data are now being digitally collected or stored, which creates tremendous opportunities to transform lives through better social policies. Using these data sets in creative and innovative ways to evaluate programs and therefore improve outcomes is a vital step...

Blog

Announcing the Innovation in Government Initiative

Today we are announcing J-PAL’s Innovation in Government Initiative (IGI). IGI’s mission is to work with governments to adapt, pilot, and scale evidence-informed innovations with the potential to improve the lives of millions of people living in poverty in developing countries.