J-PAL: 20 Years of Acting on Poverty
In the 20 years since its founding, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) has grown into a global network of more than 750 researchers evaluating effective solutions for poverty alleviation, with regional offices partnering with local governments and nonprofit organisations to advance evidence-based policies and programmes.
The lab's methodology, according to co-founder and co-director Esther Duflo, enables economists to take "big problems and break them into manageable pieces, smaller questions that admit rigorous answers."
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) was founded with a clear mission: to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence.
From scrappy beginnings 20 years ago, J-PAL has grown into a network of more than 750 researchers worldwide rigorously evaluating the most—and least—effective approaches to fighting poverty. It has launched multiple initiatives to concentrate resources around key priorities for policymakers, launched regional offices, and amassed hundreds of government and nonprofit partnerships to share findings and catalyze the adoption of evidence at scale. The result: more than half a billion people across the globe have been reached by programs and policies informed by insights from researchers affiliated with J-PAL over the past two decades.
Applying to economics the methodology long used for testing new drugs and medical treatments, J-PAL-affiliated scientists carry out randomized controlled trials that, in the words of J-PAL cofounder and Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Esther Duflo PhD ’99, take “big problems and break them into manageable pieces, smaller questions that admit rigorous answers.” It’s an approach that provides an alternative to “basing decisions on instinct, ideology, or inertia,” says J-PAL global executive director Iqbal Dhaliwal.