J-PAL Turns Five

J-PAL celebrates its fifth anniversary this year—five years that have transformed the emphasis given to rigorous evidence based policy in development and poverty research. Both governments and donors are recognizing how it can help the make their programs more effective.

Most of the largest foundations, international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and agencies now fund or run randomized impact evaluations. And other major new initiatives reveal the determination to fill the evidence gap.

Those embarking on their first randomized evaluations of social programs in the last five years—many in collaboration with J-PAL researchers—include the governments of France, Britain, Morocco, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone; the Millennium Challenge Corporation; Care International; Save the Children; Freedom from Hunger; Oxfam; BRAC; and the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The World Bank has dramatically scaled up its randomized evaluations—supported, in part, by the Spanish Trust Fund for Impact Evaluation.

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3IE), which pools funding from a variety of donors and governments, launched its first small scale grants for rigorous impact evaluations this year. The initiative was established in response to a Center for Global Development report “When Will We Ever Learn,” issued by a working group that included J-PAL Director Esther Duflo.

The last five years have also seen J-PAL grow dramatically in size and scope. The J-PAL network of professors has grown from 11 to 30, our ongoing projects from 20 to over 100, and the number of people we train each year has soared from 22 to 160. In 2007 J-PAL opened two regional offices in Europe and South Asia—the offices were founded to disseminate results more effectively, and build closer relationships with policymakers in Europe, Francophone Africa, and South Asia. Our executive training course has reached more than 400 participants from around the globe. Many of them are now conducting rigorous evaluations, alone or together with J-PAL.

In the coming months J-PAL will announce new initiatives designed to further our mission of reducing poverty by basing policy on scientific evidence. Watch this space!