Promoting meaningful collaboration between researchers and decision-makers
Why Partner with CEGA
We build novel research to identify key policy questions and address them using the best data and methods. CEGA researchers partner with governments, non-profits, implementing organizations and industry to introduce or scale evidence-backed innovations, field-test new approaches, build stronger internal data and analysis systems, and rigorously measure the impacts of their work in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
By partnering with CEGA, institutions gain useful insights from randomized and other rigorous evaluations; build internal capacity to collect and analyze data; answer key questions about their program operations and costs; and help to generate knowledge that can inform the investments and strategies of governments, donors, and others.
Opportunities and Services
We welcome the opportunity to work with a diversity of policymakers to conduct timely, actionable, and scalable research about the impacts of economic and social development programs in LMICs. CEGA values equal partnerships and is committed to building capacity to ensure sustainability, local ownership, and use of critical insights. Our range of research services include:
- Forging new research and policy collaborations in LMICs
- Finding new uses of existing data and leveraging routinely-collected data
- Collecting new data, including cost inputs, to be used in cost-benefit analysis
- Providing technical assistance to strengthen monitoring and evaluation practices
- Advising on the development of new platforms and tools for data collection or evidence synthesis
- Building capacity of researchers and policymakers in LMICs and elsewhere to rigorously measure the impact of programs and policies
- Designing impact evaluations in close collaboration with end users
- Synthesizing and promoting evidence to inform institutional and programmatic decision making
How to Partner
Partnering with CEGA begins with a discussion of program and policy priorities and identifying questions that can be answered with better data, tools, and analysis. We establish close working relationships between CEGA affiliated faculty, researchers in LMICs, and institutional counterparts to ensure that priorities are addressed, studies are context-specific, and project timelines fit the policy window we identify together. We seek out collaborators with flexible scale-up plans, so that we can be involved in decisions about timing and geographic placement of expanding programs. By engaging policy partners from project conceptualization, we maximize the likelihood of evidence being used in decision making.
Using Data Science to Connect Syrian Refugees to Better Jobs
Research collaborations between CEGA and decision-makers across the globe have produced critical evidence about what works to expand education, health, and economic opportunities for people living in poverty. A partnership between CEGA researchers, the Jordanian Ministry of Labor, the World Bank, and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one salient example of CEGA’s ability to build successful, durable partnerships that address complex economic and social challenges.
Job displacement is a major hardship faced by refugees. More than 700,000 Syrian refugees have migrated to Jordan since 2012, and finding work remains a challenge. In response, the Jordanian government offered 200,000 work permits to refugees in 2016. To maximize limited opportunities for both refugees and unemployed Jordanians, jobs need to be appropriately targeted using labor market data and participant characteristics (such as age, gender, job experience, education, etc.).
With a competitive grant from CEGA, researchers developed a novel algorithm to adaptively target policy interventions to maximize the welfare of participants with labor market data from the IRC’s job-matching platform.
In 2022, the Jordanian Ministry of Labor and the World Bank launched the National Employment Programme (NEP) building on this research. Encouraged by the success of the program, the NEP aims to hire 63,000 new employees. A third of these hires will be women and half will be youth, ages 18-24. The application of the findings demonstrates how research partnerships can generate relevant and actionable policy information for decision-makers, enabling them to improve the lives of their citizens—and in this case—refugees seeking new lives in their adoptive lands.
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