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.
This project has been canceled. For eight months JPAL-LAC, the Ministry of Interior of Ecuador, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) have been working together to identify opportunities of evaluation in security policies financed by the IADB. From the cooperation, they have identified the “Asambleas Comunitarias” program as a subject for evaluation. Ecuador’s National Police and the Ministry of Interior have been working on this intervention to focus part of their efforts in creating a program in which community and government agencies jointly participate in creating actions plans to affect immediate causes of crime (extensive analysis of risk factors), which are jointly monitored, executed and evaluated (coordinated action and accountability). This evaluation will help make a step forward in the field of crime research as it is still unknown whether and under what circumstances citizen participation could improve security and whether this is effective in the setting of a developing country.