As our network of researchers conducting policy-relevant randomized evaluations expanded to more than 700, we created new systems and practices to strengthen our culture of high-quality research implementation and knowledge sharing. Our researchers launched more than 218 new policy-relevant evaluations in 35 countries around the world, and we partnered with donors to launch new funding streams for research in job creation, foundational learning, and digital agricultural innovation.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic continued to complicate research operations, we leveraged our nearly two decades of experience to develop resources to help minimize disruption of research and facilitate use of large administrative data sets to complement field surveys.

Maintaining the highest quality of research is essential to ensuring the accuracy and policy relevance of our work. Throughout the year, we continued to promote research transparency and added timely how-to guides to our extensive library of research resources to help standardize research activities and quality control across our offices worldwide.

New Fund to Leverage Digital Technologies to Boost Agricultural Productivity and Connect Farmers to Markets

​​Although the links between agricultural productivity, poverty reduction, and long-run economic growth have been widely studied, agricultural productivity remains stagnant in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia. What is preventing the use of new technologies that enable productivity increases? If multiple constraints exist, what products can alleviate these constraints at once? How can we leverage digital technology for this and, more broadly, to improve access to markets?

Through generous support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J-PAL partnered with UC Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action to launch the new Digital Agricultural Innovations and Services Initiative (DAISI) to address these critical questions. The initiative will fund innovative, policy-relevant research on the impact of digital tools and bundled approaches on improving smallholder farmer outcomes, bolstering farmers’ resilience to climate change, connecting farmers to markets, and expanding commercialization in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Learn more about DAISI.

DAISI co-chairs

Robert Darko Osei, University of Ghana; Tavneet Suri, MIT

Research Resource Snapshots

Ensuring data security and ethical research practices

Our new Research Quality Support system facilitates knowledge-sharing on data management and security, ethics, and protection of research participants across teams worldwide. Structured qualitative conversations provide real-time feedback on project implementation challenges and successes, while quantitative trends across offices feed into the development of new training and resources.

Measuring tricky outcomes

We developed a library of measurement and survey design resources that compiles research articles, blog posts, books, and more that explore leading tools, challenges, and solutions to accurately measuring outcomes in randomized evaluations. The library includes guidance for measuring outcomes related to corruption, energy and environment, financial inclusion, health, and housing stability and homelessness, as well as measurement using phone surveys. More resources will be released in 2022.

Data For Good

Improving government service delivery in India

Large amounts of data are being digitally collected and stored in India, creating new opportunities for researchers to design and evaluate social policies. This has great potential to improve the delivery of government services in smaller towns and cities, home to a third of India’s urban residents.

Under a new partnership, J-PAL South Asia and India’s eGovernments Foundation (eGov) will use secure, anonymized data from eGov’s digital platforms to design, plan and execute randomized evaluations to improve citizens’ engagement and welfare. The platforms, developed by eGov in collaboration with their government partners, gather real-time information on transactions and metrics around municipal services.

The partnership was launched under J-PAL's Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action (IDEA) Initiative, which supports governments, firms, and nonprofit organizations in accessing and analyzing administrative data for policy research in a secure and ethical manner.

"There has been a huge dearth of data around how Indian cities work. Over the last eighteen years, eGov foundation has built digital platforms for cities that make real-time data on municipal services available to policymakers and governments. With J-PAL now onboard, this data will be used to study, analyze and design effective government policies."

eGov and J-PAL South Asia will also work toward enhancing the decision-making capabilities of local governments by providing customized capacity building and advisory support to analyze administrative data.

Key Partnership Opportunities

• Launch new funds to generate critical evidence in anti-discrimination, media misinformation, and foundational learning for all children.

• Expand funds bringing evidence to policy in crime and violence, gender and economic agency, governance, and jobs and opportunities.

• Increase the use of administrative data for evidence-informed decision-making through the Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action Initiative.

• Support research transparency and methods research through improvements to the AEA RCT Registry and the implementation of a metadata catalog to facilitate data access and reuse.