Innovations for Poverty Action, the most influential charity you’ve never heard of, and J-PAL tackle poverty in less developed countries by rigorously investigating poverty, the effectiveness of poverty-reduction programmes, and supporting the expansion of the best. Their main investigative tool is the randomised control trial, developed in medical research (where it may well have quietly saved your life several times) now increasingly used elsewhere. Randomised control trials (RCTs) are powerful because they, uniquely, demonstrate what happened which would not have happened otherwise, i.e., the true impact of a programme. The sample size, duration and rigour of IPA & J-PAL’s studies makes them a great deal more robust than most charity/development evaluations.

IPA & J-PAL have run more than 400  studies in 40 countries, across many aspects of poverty, including health, education, agriculture, governance, micro-finance and environment. Its research is normally led by tenured academics, many at universities such as Harvard, University College London, the London School of Economics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, and most of it is published in respected peer-reviewed journals. The evaluations are normally of programmes run by NGOs and/or governments. J-PAL is a network of over 80 academics and IPA now has 600 staff in 14 offices. Typical research questions include: 

–          Do better cook-stoves really save all the carbon, fuel, time and health problems which their advocates claim? (Answer: sadly not.)

–          Which is a better way of getting teachers to turn up to school in India: giving them financial incentives to attend, or putting cameras in class rooms? (Answer: cameras are  miles better.)

–          To dissuade poor parents from taking their children out of school, you might give them cash when their children come to school (‘a conditional cash transfer programme). The conditionality is quite expensive to administer, so does it matter if you ditch it? (Answer: not in Colombia, but yes in Malawi.)

Caroline Fiennes, Director of Giving Evidence, is now working with IPA in Europe, aiming to raise awareness of the method, usage of their research findings, and resources to enable further study and further uptake of the findings. I’m delighted: given my passion for giving based on the evidence of what works, it’s natural to support more which generates, uses and shares that evidence.

That extreme poverty persists, and now only a few hours flight from our comfortable lives, is one of the biggest shames of our age; and J-PAL and IPA deploy against it the scientific method, perhaps mankind’s greatest achievement. As a result, it has a cupboard full of surprising insights which need to be heard and used.

What’s the difference between IPA and J-PAL (the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT)?

IPA and J-PAL are sister organisations, both doing RCTs in development, and they collaborate more closely than any charities I’ve ever seen. For instance, their names – which share the ‘poverty action’ bit – are deliberately similar.

J-PAL is a network of academics, based at MIT and now with centres in four other universities (in India, South Africa, Latin America, Indonesia). Hence J-PAL’s studies are all undertaken by academics. IPA is a free-standing charity. Its studies are often led by academics (many of whom are affiliates of both IPA and J-PAL) but sometimes led by IPA staff. This provides an important freedom. Academics are incentivised to do studies which will get published, which encourages innovative studies. Those are important and J-PAL academics frequently do them.

But suppose somebody’s studied cook-stoves in northern Kenya and now we need to see if the surprising findings are also true in southern Kenya: despite being important, that study is pretty unattractive to an academic, but IPA might well do it.

IPA and J-PAL deliberately avoid having offices in the same countries as each other.

By a weird quirk of fate, the leaders of J-PAL and IPA are actually sisters. J-PAL was co-founded by Esther Duflo (MIT professor, and co-author of the prize-winning book Poor Economics), and IPA’s CEO is Annie Duflo. IPA was founded in 2002 by Professor Dean Karlan at Yale University: Dean did his PhD with Abhijit Banerjee, the other co-founder of J-PAL.

Are RCTs really better than other forms of evaluation?

Yes, a lot. Explained here, about Goldman Sachs, and here about evaluations in general.

But RCTs can’t be used in all circumstances.

Correct. Nobody said they could. Their limitations, and what to do about them, is discussed in my book.

Doesn’t helping IPA and J-PAL raise money conflict with Giving Evidence’s work advising donors?

Not really. First, it’s hardly a secret – and I discuss it explicitly with donors to which it pertains. Second, it’s no secret that I advocate giving based on evidence, and hence is hardly surprising that I’m working with the people who generate it. Third, it means that I’m hooked into some of the world’s best thinking about using evidence to improve performance, which is pretty handy for clients. Fourth, in any instance where a donor is interested in development work, I’m ‘acting for’ the donor rather than IPA/J-PAL and IPA/J-PAL know that. Fifth, I have no performance incentive with IPA/J-PAL. Etc etc.

IPA and J-PAL sound great. How do I…

– find out more? Here

– find the research?  (IPA’s research is all summarised here (and here are summaries of J-PAL’s research.)

– give them money? Either here, or we’re setting up a UK mechanism: coming soon.

– support good programmes they’ve discovered? Either here, or we’re setting up a UK mechanism: coming soon

– contact you for advice about my/ my company’s giving? At enquiries [at] giving-evidence [dot] com

The FT on how (as result of J-PAL’s work) development is becoming a science—>

The Economist on findings of a J-PAL study and IPA replication about nailing poverty—>

Bloomberg on how J-PAL, IPA and RCTs “speed our way toward a better world”–>

RCTs find how to buy one, get 24 for free!—>