J-PAL’s Social Protection sector focuses on identifying policies and programs in low- and middle-income countries effective at providing financial assistance to low-income families, insuring against shocks, and breaking poverty traps.

J-PAL’s Health sector focuses on identifying policies and programs effective at improving the reach, quality, and take-up of health services and products.

J-PAL’s Finance sector measures the impact of financial services, products, and process innovations, and tries to understand how access to financial services can be used as a mechanism to reduce poverty and spur economic development.

J-PAL’s Environment, Energy, and Climate Change sector measures the real-world impacts of energy and environmental policies, particularly on climate change mitigation, pollution reduction, climate change adaptation, and energy access.

J-PAL’s Labor Markets sector focuses on increasing people’s economic opportunities and bolstering their livelihoods through work. The sector evaluates labor market policies and strategies to increase employment and earnings and improve quality of work.

J-PAL's Crime, Violence, and Conflict sector focuses on identifying the most effective strategies for preventing, mitigating, and responding to the effects of crime, violence, and conflict.

Gender norms and biases continue to constrain human potential around the world. J-PAL’s Gender sector produces cross-cutting insights on promoting gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment, and on how norms related to gender affect the outcomes of social programs.