Data Science for Policy Impact Initiative at J-PAL South Asia

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 of administrative and survey data (and increasingly using new digital technologies) to inform policy research and decision-making, and in the process improve development outcomes. A multi-pronged approach will be used to achieve this goal. First, the initiative plans to help launch proof-of-concept analytics projects and randomized evaluations to generate high-quality, actionable information for government partners. Second, the initiative will allow J-PAL staff and affiliates to engage more deeply with government partners to help them institutionalize a data-driven approach to decision-making. Finally, the initiative will leverage J-PAL expertise to build state capacity to generate, maintain, and use high-quality data, and to run iterative analytics on an ongoing basis.