Displaced Livelihoods Initiative (DLI): Policymaker and Practitioner Information Session

The Displaced Livelihoods Initiative (DLI) aims at generating rigorous evidence to inform policies and programs that foster sustainable livelihoods for displaced and host communities. The initiative includes multiple opportunities for policymakers and practitioners in the displacement space to become part of a research partnership and design their own impact evaluation with technical assistance from J-PAL and IPA. An information session held  on March 10, 2023 provided an introduction to DLI’s scope as well as more details on the opportunities for engagement. Check out the session recording for an introduction to DLI and an overview of opportunities for implementing organizations.

The presentation slides are available here and a Q&A summary from the session will follow. The main avenues for engagement for policymakers and practitioners are also summarized below.

Partnering with Researchers 

As part of DLI, IPA and J-PAL run bi-annual calls for proposals to award funding for research on promising avenues to promote sustainable livelihoods for displacement-affected populations. These calls are open to independent academics, in partnership with the organizations that wish to learn more about the impact of their program(s).

If your organization is looking for researchers with whom to develop a rigorous impact evaluation of your programs and apply for evaluation funding, we invite you to complete our matchmaking form. We will review your information and follow up with questions or next steps if we think a connection may be feasible. Please note that this will not guarantee a match. 

Incubator workshops:  Designing your randomized evaluation 

DLI’s incubators are workshops that we offer to implementing organizations with the goal of developing a feasible impact evaluation design for the projects they wish to learn more about and refine. Led by researchers and staff from J-PAL and IPA, these workshops support teams from implementing organizations in building out their own impact evaluation concept note and provide an opportunity to discuss partnerships with researchers to conduct the evaluation. The first incubator workshop will be in Paris in the week of October 16, 2023. Stay tuned for applications to open in June 2023 through subscribing to our social media channels and signing up for our newsletter (select “Humanitarian Action”). 

In case of questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected].