Gender-based violence (GBV) is a pervasive issue that challenges policymakers around the globe. Despite this, there is an alarmingly limited body of rigorous research capable of informing policy. This project will bring new experimental evidence on an...

This partnership will create an Innovation and Evaluation Hub in the Ministry of Education of the Province of Salta, Argentina. The hub will have two main goals: (a) to leverage the recent adoption of national student assessments at the end of primary and...

The Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) created the Policy Research and Development Division (PRD) in January 2015 to promote evidence-based decision-making and develop evaluation standards. DepEd has requested support from IPA and J-PAL to build the...

Agricultural electricity subsidies in India were created as a lifeline to farmers, allowing the spread of irrigation using electric pumps to extract groundwater. Instead, they have locked rural India into a destructive cycle of groundwater depletion and bad...

Increasing tax collection has become a key priority of developing countries aiming to increase economic development. In Kenya, “broadening the tax base through an enhanced taxpayer recruitment effort” constitutes the first pillar of the Kenya Revenue Authority...

Youth employment and skills development is a key concern for Côte d’Ivoire in its race to achieve emergence by 2030. Over the last five years, the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, the World Bank, and independent researchers have maintained a close partnership...

GPI provided seed funding to set up and build an interdisciplinary Data Science for Policy Impact initiative within J-PAL South Asia. The overarching goal of this initiative is to support strategic government partners in systematically analyzing large volumes...

J-PAL LAC worked with the Innovation Division of the Chilean Ministry of Economy to develop an evidence-informed strategy for disbursing the funds from its Innovation for Competitiveness Fund (FIC), which finances nearly 70 different innovation efforts each...

In 2002, Indonesia’s Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) launched a comprehensive reform of the tax administration. Among other interventions, performance incentives were overhauled, the organizational structure of tax offices was modified, and IT systems were...

In 2015, an estimated 3.5 million people suffered from Tuberculosis (TB) in India. The under-detection of TB represents a key challenge for health officials in developing countries because the success of any treatment program rests crucially on identifying...

The Government of Tamil Nadu entered into a comprehensive partnership with J-PAL SA at IFMR in 2014 with the stated goal of institutionalizing evidence-based policy making. More than three years into the partnership, the government has supported 15 policy...

In order to address a huge backlog of cases and low settlement rates, the President of Mexico City’s Labor Court asked researchers to construct a calculator that provides statistical information to parties and lawyers attending hearings during the course of...

Low administrative capacity and pervasive corruption constrain the performance of social programs in many developing countries. However, e-governance mechanisms may be a promising way to mitigate this problem by reducing the number of agents acting as...

Youth unemployment is a critical challenge in across the world. In Egypt, one sixth of the youth population is unemployed and one third is neither in education, employment or training. Despite high unemployment rates, firms report significant difficulties...

Take up of preventive health care has been shown to be highly sensitive to price. Randomized evaluations in India and Pakistan are currently testing how immunization responds to different incentives. Both use mobile payment platforms to provide incentives...

J-PAL LAC has collaborated with many governments throughout the region to build demand for and capacity to use evidence in policymaking. Learning2Leap is a qualitative research study to learn from eleven of these partnerships about what encourages governments...

Brazil’s fiscal crisis has increased government interest in evidence-informed policy design. During a time of budget cuts, this project addresses demand for large-scale capacity building on evidence-informed policymaking and impact evaluation within the...

Despite almost universal primary school enrollment in Zambia, many students fail to learn basic skills. In 2016, the Zambia Ministry of Education collaborated with J-PAL Africa to launch a pilot of the Zambia Catch Up Program in 80 schools, which was modeled...

Despite investments in infrastructure and personnel that have increased access to care, the quality of government health care in India remains low. One important, but understudied, aspect of quality is provider-patient communication. Poor “soft skills” among...

A distinguishing feature of labor litigation is that plaintiffs are rarely repeat players and therefore often have poor information about probable results of the lawsuit. In developing countries, this problem is exacerbated because a large proportion of fired...

Immunization is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve child health in developing countries. In India, at most 54 percent of children aged 12 to 24 months are fully immunized. The government has invested heavily in improving vaccine delivery. However...

In partnership with the Chilean Ministry of Economy, we will develop a learning scheme inside their Innovation Division, building and strengthening the capacities of their team and identifying evaluation opportunities. The Innovation Division at the Chilean...

Despite the centrality of court adjudication to the rule of law, and of court-connected mediation programs to court adjudication, there has never been a well-executed and exhaustive study of mediation’s costs and benefits. This project will complete a...

Low administrative capacity and pervasive corruption constrain the performance of social programs in many developing countries. The increasing promise of e-governance for delivering public services makes it possible to design mechanisms with fewer agents...

Colombia’s Division of Monitoring and Evaluation of Public Policies (DSEPP), part of the National Department of Planning (DNP) of the Colombian Government, has the mission of defining evaluation priorities, and coordinating and funding evaluations, to support...

The low effort and effectiveness of government teachers in India is now well-documented. A number of randomized evaluations have shown that non-discretionary, systematic monitoring and incentives can raise teacher effort and improve student achievement...

The project worked with the Peruvian Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP) to improve its policies, programs and projects by incorporating and producing rigorous evidence on the impact of its interventions. The project, which was developed in...

Despite gains in enrollment, learning levels in Zambia remain low. Large, heterogeneous classrooms mean that students who miss basic skills never have the chance to catch up. Randomized evaluations from researchers in the J-PAL network show that programs which...

Informal providers in the private sector with little or no formal medical training represent majority of India’s rural primary healthcare workforce. Given their strong community ties and presence where few alternatives exist, one potential solution to abate...

The Government of Tamil Nadu entered into a comprehensive partnership with J-PAL SA at IFMR in 2014 with the stated goal of institutionalizing an evidence-based policy making. This requires a holistic approach including a commitment to results, an openness to...

In July 2015, the Philippines government issued a circular mandating evidence-based decisions and proposed ambitious new evaluation standards across all government departments. Motivated in part by these new standards and an impending expansion, the Department...

In Bogotá, one of Latin America’s largest cities, 59 percent of residents report feeling insecure in the city (a sharp increase from 24 percent in 2008). The Mayor-elect has appointed a prominent economist from Universidad de los Andes, Daniel Mejia, to become...

Rio de Janeiro State´s Citizen Security Secretariat and Military Police struggle to fight high rates of crime with a police force that many consider corrupt and violent. Moreover, little is known about the causes of police violence, how police violence affects...

Despite its policy and political relevance, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment (MMA) lacks tools to fine-tune and improve its programs. This project will provide MMA with technical support to implement a Policy Design and Optimization Lab (PDOL) and build...