Events

Evidence-Based Education: Policy-Making and Reform in Africa

May 14-15, 2012

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in collaboration with Ghana Educational Services (GES) present the Evidence-Based Education: Policy-Making and Reform in Africa Conference bringing African education practitioners, government policymakers, and researchers together to listen to and discuss current evidence on what works in education.

This 2-day conference will feature a large-scale evaluation of the Ghana Government’s Teacher Community Assistant Initiative (TCAI), aimed at improving literacy and numeracy levels in basic schools and implemented by Ghana Education Services, the Ghana National Association of Teachers and the National Youth Employment, and evaluated by IPA. The conference will also cover topics including student attendance, supportive learning through technology, and teacher accountability and incentives, with presentations from leading international researchers and educational practitioners including:

• Abhijit Banerjee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Paul Glewwe (University of Minnesota)
• Annie Duflo (Innovations for Poverty Action)
• Isaac Mbiti (Southern Methodist University)
• Kehinde Ajayi (Boston University)

Find the tentative agenda here

J-PAL Executive Education Training: May 16-19, 2012: The conference will be followed by a four day J-PAL Executive Training Course on how to evaluate the impact of programs, focused on education. The course will be geared towards project teams seeking to implement their own evaluations in their home countries. 

Find the tentative agenda here and more information click here (Veuillez trouver la circulaire en français).

Promoting Recovery after War: Microenterprises for Vulnerable Women?

Monday, March 26th, 2012
4:30pm - 6:30pm

Location: Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
1717 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Bernstein-Offit Building Room 500 
Washington, DC 20036 (map)

Discussion of Preliminary Results from a Randomized Impact Evaluation in Northern Uganda

The Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI-USA) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins SAIS International Development Department, invite you to participate in a discussion of preliminary results from the Women’s INcome Generation Support (WINGS) Program in Kitgum and Gulu districts of northern Uganda.

Presenters: 

• Eric Green, PhD, Population Council
• Julian Jamison, PhD, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
• John Makoha, AVSI Country Representative for Uganda
• Francesca Oliva, AVSI Program Manager for WINGS

Register here. Find additional information about the event here.

Helping the Poor Save More in Ghana: New Evidence from Randomized Evaluations

March 14, 2012
9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location: ISSER, University of Ghana, Legon 

On March 14, 2012, researchers from Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) will present results from a portfolio of recently-completed field experiments on savings in Ghana. This event will be useful for policymakers and practitioners interested in learning what works and what does not work in savings. Researchers will discuss randomized controlled trails conducted on a range of interventions aimed at increasing access to, and usage of, savings products tailored for the poor, including goal-oriented labeled savings accounts and matched savings accounts.  This one-day conference will share IPA project results and discuss the applicability and relevance to ongoing financial inclusion efforts in Ghana and beyond. 

Presenters:

• Dean Karlan (Yale, IPA)
• Margaret McConnell (Harvard)
• Robert Osei (ISSER)
• William Steel (ISSER)
• Bram Thuysbaert (Yale)

Register here  Attendance is free but registration is required due to space limitations. 

Ending Poverty through Education: New Evidence from India and Africa

March 2, 2012
9:00 am - 12:30 pm

Location: University of California, Washington Center
1608 Rhode Island Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20036 (map)

Which programs work to improve educational outcomes?  Education experts from UC San Diego, Harvard, University of Texas, and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) will share the results from rigorous evaluations of education programs in India and Africa. Come learn what works, what doesn’t, and how effective programs can be translated into policy.

Register here and find more details here. 

Presenters: Karthik Muralidharan (UC San Diego), Leigh Linden (University of Texas), Michael Kremer (Harvard), Annie Duflo (Innovations for Poverty Action)

Partners: Center of Evaluation for Global Action (CEGA) and The University of California Washington DC Program (UCDC)

Deworm the World Featured at World Economic Forum in Davos

January 30th, 2012

Location: World Economic Forum
Davos-Klosters, Switzerland

Deworm the World was featured at at a World Economic Forum event in Davos in January 2012. The press conference highlighted key achievements of this Young Global Leader initiative and featured exciting new commitments from partners to improve the lives of millions of children through school-based deworming.

Read the press release.
Watch the press conference.

A YGL Initiative: Deworm the World

January 27, 2012

Location: Congress Centre, Press Conference Room
World Economic Forum
Davos-Klosters, Switzerland
13:00 - 13:30 CET

The Deworm the World initiative of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders improves the education and health of school-age children across the globe by supporting governments and development partners to expand school-based deworming programs. Building on its success in Kenya and India, plans were presented to expand the initiative to other countries. 

The session included: 
Speakers 

• Raila Amolo Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya
• Rajiv J. Shah, Administrator, US Agency for International Development (USAID), USA 
• Jamie Cooper-Hohn, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), United Kingdom 
• John Dutton, Deputy Head, Forum of Young Global Leaders, World Economic Forum, Switzerland
• Sriram Raghavan, Chief Executive Officer, InKlude Labs, India; Young Global Leader; and Deworm the World Board Member

Moderated by 
Kai Bucher, Associate Director, Media, World Economic Forum, USA

J-PAL Training Courses

Ongoing

Location: Various

The J-PAL Training Course is held annually in several locations worldwide. In 2011, courses were held in Cape Town (South Africa), Cambridge, MA (USA), Brussels (Belgium), and Mexico City (Mexico). In 2012, courses will be held in Cape Town (South Africa) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). This five-day program on evaluating social programs provides a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations and pragmatic step-by-step training for conducting one’s own evaluation.

An advanced two-day workshop will be held in Cambridge, MA (USA) in May 2012.

SME Initiative First Annual Conference

November 30, 2011

Location: Washington, DC

The SME Initiative hosted its First Annual Conference on Entrepreneurship and SME Development  on November 30, 2011.  Co-hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund, this event brought together over 130 researchers, practitioners and policymakers focused on entrepreneurship and SMEs in emerging markets.  Presentations on past and ongoing research studies covered a range of topics related to access to managerial human capital, access to finance, and job creation with evidence from a number of countries, including Ghana, India, Mexico, Peru and Sri Lanka.  Practitioner perspectives on each of these topical areas were also presented, to facilitate a dialogue between the worlds of research and policy.  The event concluded with a panel discussion on “Why should we care about the ‘Missing Middle’?”  Presentations from the event are available here.