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 Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities Project (KYEOP) is a large program led by the Government of Kenya (GoK) and the World Bank (WB), targeting young women and men with no more than a secondary education who are unemployed or working vulnerable jobs. Youth, and females in particular, face specific constraints when seeking jobs or entrepreneurial success: limited finances, low skills, lack of experience and networks, family obligations, fewer role models, and more. Our team therefore designed a set of complementary interventions specifically targeted to overcome these gendered barriers. We are conducting a major randomized impact evaluation to analyze the combined and isolated effects of providing unconditional cash grants, business development services (BDS) in different formats (traditional classroom, via one-on-one counseling visits, and via flexible self-paced digital means); and behavioral interventions (facilitated peer networks, and aspirations / future self). We would like to evaluate impacts 2-3 years later.