
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 900 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.
Generating evidence to inform policies for gender equality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a crucial priority for J-PAL LAC, and government partnerships are critical to achieving this goal. Since 2020, J-PAL LAC has been partnering with the Mexico City Women's Secretariat (SEMUJERES), which is dedicated to using scientific evidence in their decision-making to reduce intimate partner violence and prevent femicide. To learn lessons from this collaboration, we interviewed Dulce Colín, general director for gender equality at SEMUJERES.
During these years, J-PAL affiliated researchers, J-PAL LAC staff, and governmental officials have worked together to institutionalize a culture of policy making at SEMUJERES. Milestones of this work have included running an ongoing pilot study led by J-PAL affiliates and funded by Open Society Foundations to reduce intimate partner violence and prevent femicide in Mexico City; improving targeting a conditional cash transfer program based on an evidence review, and providing a training on randomized evaluations and measurement with a gender lens for policymakers. In these short videos, Dulce explains the partnership's main achievements and gives invaluable insights into this collaboration.
Learn more examples of how we work together with LAC governments to reduce poverty and improve social policy around the world. Also, discover how we are helping to incorporate the use of evidence into the Mexican and Brazilian government's work.