J-PAL and IPA Executive Education Course: Evaluating Social Programs

Workshop or Training
Location:
Manila, Phillipines

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Southeast Asia (J-PAL SEA) and Innovations for Poverty Action - Philippines are proud to invite managers and researchers from international development organizations, foundations, governments and non-governmental organizations from around the world, as well as trained economists looking to retool, to participate in our Executive Training program.

This five-day program on evaluating social programs will provide a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations and pragmatic step-by-step training for conducting one’s own evaluation. It will focus on the benefits and methods of randomization, choosing an appropriate sample size, and common threats and pitfalls to the validity of the experiment. While the program is centered around the why, how and when of Randomized Evaluations, it will also impart insights on the importance of a needs assessment, measuring outcomes effectively, quality control, and monitoring methods that are useful for all kinds of evaluations.

Course Coverage: 

Specifically, the following key questions and concepts will be covered:

  • Why and when is a rigorous evaluation of social impact needed?
  • The common pitfalls of evaluations, and why does randomization help
  • The key components of a good randomized evaluation design?
  • Alternative techniques for incorporating randomization into project design
  • How do you determine the appropriate sample size, measure outcomes, and manage data?
  • Guarding against threats that may undermine the integrity of the results
  • Techniques for the analysis and interpretation of results
  • How to maximize policy impact and test external validity

For lectures videos and course content from a past Executive Education course, please click here.

Admission to the course will be competitive. Interested applicants must complete the course application by 16 October 2015.

The participation fee for the executive education program is US$2000 for multinational organizations, and international NGOs operating in more than one country, and US$1000 for academics, research institutes, universities, national governments or local NGOs (operating within one country). Payment can be made via cheque, wire transfer or credit card. Interested organizations can contact Peter Srouji or Lina Marliani for more information on registration and payment procedures. Course participants will be expected to pay for their travel, accommodation, and visa. All admission decisions will be made on a rolling basis, and participants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

Documents