Summer School: Development Methodologies

As part of the "Development Methodologies" Professorship held by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, a summer school for African researchers and project leaders will take place from July 4 to 7, 2023 in Rabat on the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University campus. 

The 2023 summer school follows a similar summer school held in July 2022 in Abidjan and is organised in partnership with the French Development Agency, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the Fund for Innovation in Development, the Morocco Employment Lab and the “Humanities, Economics and Social Sciences” Cluster and the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. At the summer school, participants will have the opportunity to learn from renowned researchers in the  J-PAL network–including Esther Duflo, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Co-Founder of J-PAL, and winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Participants 

The summer school will bring together three groups of participants:

• Francophone and anglophone African researchers who have demonstrated an interest and ability to incorporate impact evaluation methods into their research work;
• Francophone project leaders interested in launching rigorous impact evaluations of  innovative programmes.
• Moroccan project leaders who are discovering impact evaluations. 

Format

The summer school will offer two teaching modules to meet the needs and interests of both groups of participants: 

• An academic workshop aimed at strengthening the knowledge and further developing the good practices of participants who are already well-versed in the methodological foundations of impact evaluations; 
• A project incubator aimed at giving a non-specialist audience a solid understanding of what impact evaluations are to prepare them to, one day, launch their own. 

These two modules will be complemented by joint sessions which will bring together both groups of participants to facilitate exchanges between researchers and project leaders. A high-level day will bring together Moroccan and international decision-makers (in addition to the participants) interested in evidence-based public policies. 

The detailed programme agenda can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.

Speakers

Esther Duflo, Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Co-Founder and Co-Director of J-PAL, and winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, will give the keynote address. 

The two modules will be led by affiliated researchers and senior J-PAL staff.

Affiliated researchers as well as senior J-PAL staff will lead the academic module and the incubator. Some of the courses will be taught by the following J-PAL affiliated researchers: 

• Luc Behaghel, Associate Professor at the Paris School of Economics, Researcher and Director of Research at the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Co-Chair of the Humanitarian Initiative (HI) and of the European Social Inclusion Initiative (ESII)
• Bruno Crépon, Researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistiques (CREST), Associate Professor at ENSAE and Ecole Polytechnique, Scientific Director of the Morocco Employment Lab, Scientific Director of J-PAL Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Co-Chair of the “Labour Markets” sector
• Marc Gurgand, Senior Researcher at the CNRS, Professor at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure-Paris Sciences et Lettres (ENS-PSL), and Scientific Director of J-PAL Europe
• Rema Hanna, Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South East Asia Studies, Co-Director of the Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) research programme at Harvard University, Scientific Director of the Morocco Employment Lab, and Scientific Director for Southeast Asia at J-PAL
• Karen Macours, Professor at PSE, researcher at INRA, and Co-Chair of the “Health” sector at J-PAL
• William Parienté, Professor of Economics at the Université Catholique de Louvain, and Co-Chair for Research, Education, and Training (RET) at J-PAL

Registration: Academic workshop

Applications for the academic module are now closed. We will contact selected candidates during the first half of May. 

Registration: Project incubator 

There will be no application procedure for this module; participation will be by invitation only. 
Please write to [email protected] for any questions regarding the summer school. 

Download the summer school agenda