The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.
Our affiliated professors are based at over 120 universities and conduct randomized evaluations around the world to design, evaluate, and improve programs and policies aimed at reducing poverty. They set their own research agendas, raise funds to support their evaluations, and work with J-PAL staff on research, policy outreach, and training.
Our research, policy, and training work is fundamentally better when it is informed by a broad range of perspectives.
The National Registration Bureau (NRB) achieved near-universal registration of adults over the age of 16 by the middle of 2018. However, there are ongoing challenges related to the registration of newly eligible individuals. Moreover, many technical and policy questions remain about how to link the new unique IDs to the records and operations of the more than 30 agencies involved in the country’s anti-poverty programs. Our pilot work will develop a strong partnership with NRB and build technical capacity to incorporate ID numbers in the data collected by the government agencies involved in anti-poverty programming, which will make large-scale evaluations with outcomes based on administrative data possible in the future.