Research & Policy Design – The First Bihar Development Conference

The Bihar Development Conference, jointly organized by J-PAL South Asia and the Government of Bihar, India, was aimed at identifying policy priorities in the state of Bihar and discussing ways to use evidence from J-PAL’s research to answer pressing questions about development.

The conference brought together leading academics, development practitioners and policymakers from around the world. J-PAL affiliates and their field partners from state governments and NGOs spoke about randomized evaluations of health, governance and education projects they had conducted in South Asia that might be particularly relevant for Bihar. Participants discussed the importance of impact evaluations in improving development programs and debated strategies for scaling up some of these effective development programs in Bihar.

Discussions at the conference and the relationships built between J-PAL and the state government has contributed to several collaborations with the state government:

• The Government of Bihar in association with J-PAL's sister organization - Deworm the World - launched a school-based deworming program in 2011 which targeted 20 million school-age children across the state.

• In collaboration with the Bihar Health Department, J-PAL is conducting a randomized evaluation of wide-scale distribution of Double Fortified Salt (DFS). DFID India, which was represented at the Conference, partly finances this study.

• J-PAL affiliates and the Government of Bihar are discussing approaches to improve the delivery of poverty reduction programs, including better implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGP) and the provision of cash transfers in lieu of subsidized rations.

The conference was attended by over a hundred senior government officials including the Deputy Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary of the State and senior police and civil services officials besides members of the Indian Parliament, academics, and representatives from NGOs and multilateral and bilateral agencies including the country heads of the World Bank and DFID.