With an objective to maximise the impact of anti-poverty programmes, the State Government here on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia, which has been cofounded by Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and his wife Esther Duflo.
Under the partnership, the J-PAL South Asia would provide technical assistance to the State Government for scaling up evidence-backed programmes to improve development outcomes across the State. Commensurate with the State Government’s 5T programme, the partnership aims at bringing transformation in the lives of people through research-based intervention in policy formulation.
The partnership also establishes an overarching collaboration between the J-PAL South Asia and the State Government under which J-PAL would work with several departments, including, but not limited to, Labour, Education, Health, and Women and Child Development, to conduct policy-relevant randomised evaluations of new anti-poverty and development programmes. Additionally, a diagnostic exercise and subsequent workshops would be conducted to build the State’s capacity in the areas of monitoring and evaluation.
The agreement was signed by Development Commissioner Suresh Mahapatra and J-PAL South Asia Executive Director Shobhini Mukerji at a function at the Kharvel Bhawan in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Patnaik hoped that the partnership would result in actualising the Team Odisha’s effort to transform Odisha by addressing its growing aspirations.
The J-PAL South Asia and the State Government would conduct an annual Policy Dialogue to identify the Government’s top policy priorities, conduct discussions to share evidence and jointly come up with innovative solutions that can be field-tested through rigorous randomised evaluations. Topics for the Policy Dialogues include malnutrition, women empowerment, distress migration, health worker performance and improving agricultural productivity.