OdishaPlus Bureau
The Odisha Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding today with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia to engage in a strategic evidence-based approach to policymaking. The agreement was signed by Development Commissioner Suresh Mahapatra and Executive Director of J-PAL South Asia Shobhini Mukerji, at a function at Kharvel Bhawan in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed his hope that this partnership will result in actualizing Team Odisha’s effort to transform Odisha by addressing its growing aspirations. “J-PAL South Asia is very excited to enter into collaboration with the Government of Odisha, which has been focusing on transforming outcomes and improving efficiency through a number of different initiatives,” said Shobhini Mukerji, Executive Director of J-PAL South Asia.“We look forward to working closely with them on this journey of advancing evidence-informed policymaking in the state,” she added.
This partnership targets to maximize the impact of anti-poverty programs of the state across a wide range of sectors. Under this partnership, J-PAL South Asia will provide the Odisha Government with technical assistance for scaling up evidence-backed programs to improve development outcomes across the state. Commensurate with the 5T program of the State Government this partnership aims at bringing transformation in the lives of people through research-based intervention in policy formulation.
According to officials, the Chief Minister has been focusing on the transformation of State through timely application of Transparency, Teamwork and Technology and this partnership has all the components of 5T with on-field application. The partnership also establishes an overarching collaboration between J-PAL South Asia and the Government of Odisha under which J-PAL will work with several departments, including, but not limited to, Labour, Education, Health, and Women and Child Development, to conduct policy-relevant randomized evaluations of new anti-poverty and development programs. Additionally, a diagnostic exercise and subsequent workshops will be conducted to build state capacity in the area of monitoring and evaluation.
J-PAL South Asia and the State Government will 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 randomized evaluations.
Topics for the Policy Dialogues include malnutrition, women’s empowerment, distress migration, health-worker performance, and improving agricultural productivity.
The function was attended by the members of the Council of Ministers, Skill Development Authority Chairman, Mo School Chairperson, Chief Secretary, APC and other senior officers of the State Government. Notably, the Founder and Co-founder of J-PAL Abhijeet Banarjee and Esther Duflo have been honored with Noble prize for Economics this year for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.