J-PAL Southeast Asia @10

The conference brings together academics, policymakers, and representatives from government agencies, multilateral institutions, and donor agencies operating in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The conference examines the existing evidence on critical social protection policies, identifies the key policy questions, and explores how researchers and policymakers can come together to answer them.

Local academics and leading international academics, including Suahasil Nazara (the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction/TNP2K), Rachel Glennerster (J-PAL Global), and Michael Kremer (Harvard), present topics relating to education, health, governance, and poverty reduction. One important outcome of the conference, along with meetings with stakeholders, is the development of new project ideas, for example, the health insurance study, which tests and identifies effective ways to increase the enrollment and retention of non-poor informal workers in Indonesia’s national health insurance program (Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional/JKN).

J-PAL SEA conducts series of training on randomized evaluation for the Australian Agency For International Development (AusAID), UI, University of Gadjah Mada (Universitas Gadjah Mada/UGM), and the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K).

The training in UGM is attended by staff from the Social Security Administrator for Health (Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial Kesehatan/BPJS Kesehatan). Simultaneously, BPJS Kesehatan and J-PAL SEA are in discussions to start a study to test and identify effective ways to increase the enrollment of the national health insurance scheme (Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional/JKN) enrollment and payment among informal workers to increase healthcare coverage and improve JKN’s financial sustainability. The discussion later developed into a project.

Following our first conference in 2013, J-PAL SEA hosts its second social protection conference in 2016. Over 200 policymakers, researchers, donors, and civil society members are gathering to discuss what has worked and how to further improve social protection in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The conference is helping open new relationships with public and private partners alike, including Bank Indonesia (Indonesia’s central bank), Mandiri Institute, and Jakarta’s Development Planning Agency (Badan Perencana Pembangunan Daerah Provinsi DKI Jakarta/Bappeda DKI). Topics range from designing transfers for social protection to targeting and delivering social protection, and the impact of cash transfers on labor supply.

In 2016, Jakarta was estimated to lose US $3 billion per year due to traffic congestion. Government partners in Jakarta invited J-PAL affiliated researchers Ben Olken (MIT), Rema Hanna (Harvard) and Gabriel Kreindler (Harvard) to present the results of their study on the “three-in-one” high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) policy, which find that the implementation of such a policy can greatly improve traffic conditions. While Jakarta’s Transportation Agency (Dinas Perhubungan DKI Jakarta/ Dishub DKI Jakarta) is ultimately deciding to implement an odd-even policy, J-PAL SEA is contributing to discussions by prompting government partners to consider relevant evidence before making a policy decision.

J-PAL SEA is conducting a three-day training titled “Evaluating Social Policies” in Banda Aceh and Makassar. The trainings are attended by local policymakers, researchers, lecturers, and members of civil society and NGOs. Based on participants’ feedback, the vast majority are expressing satisfaction with the course and that the training is significantly influencing how they interact with evaluation and data.

To contribute to the policy discourse on stunting prevention, J-PAL SEA and the Ministry of National Development Planning of Indonesia (Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional/Bappenas) are holding a half-day policy conference to share evidence on what programs have been effective in reducing stunting in Indonesia. In this opportunity, J-PAL SEA is sharing policy recommendations based on the results of three randomized evaluations on: PNPM Generasi (the National Community Empowerment Program— Healthy and Smart Generation), PKH, and Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (TSSM). These recommendations allow J-PAL SEA to contribute to GoI’s plan to improve social protection programs in the future.

Between 2013 and 2018, J-PAL affiliated researcher Dan Levy (Harvard) and co-authors Jean Arkedis (Harvard), Jessica Creighton (Harvard), Akshay Dixit (Harvard), Archon Fung (Harvard), Stephen Kosack (Harvard), and Courtney Tolmie (Results for Development/R4D) conducted a randomized evaluation of the T4D program to generate lessons on how to strengthen transparency and accountability of public health systems by engaging civic participation across two countries: Indonesia and Tanzania. The authors launch the findings in an evidence-sharing session in 2019, which acts as a platform for J-PAL SEA to share the evaluation results and discuss ways to better identify and formulate effective solutions to improve the governance of public service delivery in Indonesia.

In the process of testing innovative solutions to increase the quality of public transportation service, J-PAL SEA is supporting Jakarta’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network, TransJakarta, in developing its data management system. 

J-PAL SEA is working closely with TransJakarta to create an easy-to-input data management system, which uses a standardized format to structure all GPS, tap-in data, and other data TransJakarta collects. This allows the TransJakarta technical team to modify, analyze, and interpret the data. TransJakarta is now making a procedural change in how they allocate buses to routes, moving from anecdotal evidence to data-driven decisions.

In response to commonly-held beliefs among some policymakers that cash transfer programs could cause laziness and reduce work incentives, Ben Olken (MIT) is collaborating with Elan Satriawan (National Team for Acceleration of Poverty Reduction/TNP2K) and the Institute for Economic and Social Research (LPEM) to share findings from a conditional cash transfer (CCT) study in Indonesia and other countries that find no evidence that beneficiaries are wasting their CCT money on consumptive goods or are discouraged from labor. 

The effort is also supported by a number of policymakers: Vivi Yulaswati (Bappenas) and TNP2K, who are leading the advocacy efforts to improve the facilitation process of Indonesia’s CCT program, PKH.

The Indonesian Ministry of the Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Region, and Transmigration is adopting community-based targeting for the rollout of its Covid-19 relief program. The decision is informed by the result of a previous study by J-PAL affiliated researchers Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), Ben Olken (MIT), and Rema Hanna (Harvard) and their co-authors Vivi Alatas (Asakreativita), Julia Tobias (CDC Group), which find that using community members to identify the poorest households to receive cash transfers greatly improves local satisfaction and leads to smoother disbursal processes. As of December 2020, the cash transfers had been distributed to nearly 75,000 villages and over eight million recipients, including 2.5 million female breadwinners who had not previously received any social safety net programs.

Following the adoption of the community targeting method in providing cash transfer assistance during Covid-19, the Government of Indonesia is including both community targeting and self-targeting in the 2021 Ministry of Social Affairs Regulation No. 3 as methods to update the social welfare database.

The Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology is adopting several recommendations from J-PAL SEA in their operational guidelines for teachers and schools during the pandemic, including recommendations to implement periodic low-stakes assessments to identify students' learning loss, to differentiate teaching based on students' initial capability as shown in the Teaching at the Right Level pedagogy, and to provide training counselors to recognize signs of psychological pressure in both teachers and students.

J-PAL SEA is one of many organizations involved in contributing evidence to the guidelines. Read more about our exploratory study on the implementation of home learning in Jakarta and our opinion piece on the role of parental support in children’s education. 

To further expand the network of Southeast Asian researchers and policymakers committed to evidence-based policy, J-PAL SEA is collaborating with Equitable Education Fund Thailand to conduct its first impact evaluation workshop for researchers, NGOs, and government staff in Thailand’s education sector.

J-PAL SEA is hosting a public webinar titled “Navigating Indonesia’s post-pandemic era: Addressing opportunity, inequality, and growth.” Esteemed panelist H.E. Sri Mulyani Indrawati (Ministry of Finance), Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), and moderator Chatib Basri (CReco) share their insights on the need to strategically cushion the pandemic’s health and economic consequences, address Covid-19-induced inequality, and discuss what it would take for Indonesia to pursue a “green” recovery. Read the key takeaways of the event on the J-PAL blog. 

With the goal to support the growth of the evidence base in the Indonesian gender sector, J-PAL SEA hosts a public discussion to share lessons learned from the global space on interventions to improve women’s empowerment. The session also aims to provide insights into the Government of Indonesia’s policy and programs which promote gender equality and challenge gender norms. Watch the full recording of the discussion, or read the key takeaways on J-PAL’s blog.

J-PAL SEA is currently working to increase our project development and matchmaking effort in the environment sector. To help accomplish this, J-PAL SEA is organizing its first environment conference with the goal to share insights from rigorous evidence and provide a platform for stakeholders in the environment sector to connect and collaborate. Read the key takeaways in the recap blog post, or watch the event highlight video to hear from decision-makers and researchers who attended the conference.

The Government of Indonesia is becoming increasingly interested in adopting a culture of data- and evidence-driven policymaking to address the needs of the nation's most vulnerable citizens. In line with this, J-PAL SEA is organizing a series of webinars that brought multiple representatives from government and institutions together to discuss the importance of updated, secure, and ethical data-sharing practices and the need to increase collaboration between researchers and policymakers for evidence-based policymaking. 

J-PAL SEA collaborates with KSI to organize a workshop on gender-sensitive research protocols and instruments. The information that is delivered in the workshop contributes to the creation of the “Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Inclusion in Practice” publication. The publication summarizes important principles of human subject protection and ethics in every stage of the research, especially when addressing sensitive topics such as gender. 

Access to digital financial services can drive economic development by providing opportunities for those lacking access to formal financial services to conduct transactions using a digital device. In the learning collaborative session, current and former J-PAL affiliated researchers and their co-author's shares preliminary findings from a series of exploratory and pilot studies that aim to understand the competitiveness of branchless banking agents by Erika Deserranno (Northwestern University), Firman Witoelar (Australian National University), Gianmarco Leon-Ciliotta (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Martin Kanz (World Bank), and Daniel Gottlieb (London School of Economics (LSE); women’s barriers to digital financial services adoption by Arya Gaduh (University of Arkansas) and Arief Wibisono Lubis (Universitas Indonesia); and the impact of signaling product quality on e-commerce platforms by Jie Bai (Harvard), Jing Cai (University of Maryland), Daniel Xu (Duke University), Chaikal Nuryakin (Universitas Indonesia), and Prani Sastiono (Universitas Indonesia). Read the key takeaways on the J-PAL blog.

 In 2022, J-PAL affiliated researcher Gumilang Aryo Sahadewo (Universitas Gadjah Mada) and co-author Milda Irhamni shares the preliminary findings of a randomized evaluation that examine the impact of showing a short movie to parents and teenagers about the risk of child marriage and the benefit of delaying such a practice. Results from the evaluation suggest that short movies can be an effective tool to change the attitudes and perceptions among study participants. The working paper will be released in 2023 and the end survey will be conducted in 2024. 

Watch as J-PAL affiliated researchers deep dive into the study in a webinar organized by Forum Kajian Pembangunan.