“The government expects a presentation of the findings in nine days,” we heard over a video call from one of our in-country staff members in Mexico City. He was referring to the results of the RECOVR (Research for Effective COVID-19 Response) survey, an effort we started in April in order to put IPA’s expertise at policymakers’ disposal to support them in their pandemic response.
June 17, 2020
December 06, 2019
By Annie Chumpitaz Torres and Besnart Simunchembu Kangalu
Editor’s Note: Annie Chumpitaz Torres is Head of Monitoring and Strategic Evaluation at the Ministry of Education in Peru. Besnart Simunchembu Kangalu is Principal Planning and Policy Officer at the Ministry of General Education in Zambia.
Media Coverage
June 20, 2019
Spain's El País covers a results dissemination event for an IPA evaluation of World Bicycle Relief's program providing bicycles to school girls in rural Zambia.
February 28, 2019
(Editor's note: The title of this post has been updated.)
IPA pursues many strategies to move evidence to policy impact, but one that engenders particularly meaningful partnerships is to work from within governments, whether through embedding staff within government offices or facilitating the institutionalization of an “evidence unit” within a ministry. For example:
Media Coverage
January 28, 2019
Devex reports on Co-Impact's first round of grant awards, including a grant to scale-up Teaching at the Right Level, a collaboration between, IPA, J-PAL, Pratham, and a host of other governments and organizations to improve primary and remedial education beyond Zambia to across Africa.
Media Coverage
January 03, 2019
In a video for VoxDev, Corinne Low, an Assistant Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, highlights an IPA study she and a team of researchers conducted evaluating the impact of teaching teenage girls in Zambia negotiating skills to advocate for furthering their education.
Media Coverage
January 03, 2019
Meagan Neal, a former J-PAL Policy Associate, writes about how IPA evidence on a remedial education approach known as Teaching at the Right Level helped the government of Zambia scale-up pilot programs to improve basic math and reading skills in primary school students.
Media Coverage
February 10, 2018
Quartz reports on IPA findings in rural Zambia that simple, low-cost growth charts reduced malnutrition. Among previously malnourished children, the charts reduced stunting by 22 percentage points, and they appear to be a cost-effective tool to reduce physical growth deficits in this context. Read more about the evaluation here.
Announcement
August 15, 2017
The Peace & Recovery (P&R) Program at Innovations for Poverty Action is launching its first request for proposals, through an Expression of Interest (EOI) Form available now. Expressions of Interest are due on September 15, 2017.
The P&R Program is designed to support field experiments and related research in several broad areas:
Media Coverage
July 26, 2016
Some of the smartest people in the world are thinking about international development. But we have to make sure their good ideas don’t get stuck inside the ivory tower. USAID helps scientists bridge the gap between their research and implementation on the ground. Recently, a group of researchers funded by USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures program studied community health worker recruitment.
January 22, 2016
Next month, a new and improved contraceptive product will be marketed to urban, young adults with some disposable income, using billboards, Facebook, and WhatsApp messages. These millennials are living in Lusaka, Zambia, and right alongside this marketing campaign will be a group of health researchers who know that making a new product available doesn’t mean it’ll actually get used. The product is the Maximum Diva Women’s Condom, a new and improved female condom, with a better design, in a sleek new package and at a slightly higher price point.
Media Coverage
October 08, 2015
National Public Radio's Morning Edition went to Zambia to report on IPA's study there adapting the Harvard Business School's negotiation curriculum for girls there. The project is exploring whether equipping girls with negotiation skills can better help them navigate the many challenges they face and stay in school.
Media Coverage
August 06, 2014
Nava Ashraf explains why it makes sense for field researchers to co-produce knowledge with the people they study and serve.
Günther Fink, Kelsey Jack
June 25, 2014
Growing up in the California Bay Area with temperate weather year round, seasonality to me meant the difference between putting on a t-shirt or a light sweater in the morning. However, here in Eastern Zambia, seasonality affects a lot more than just clothes: the vast majority of people are subsistence farmers, the economy is largely agrarian, and, because agriculture relies on the rains, there is only one harvest each year.
Media Coverage
June 03, 2014
London School of Economics' International Growth Centre recently produced a short film featuring our researchers Nava Ashraf and Oriana Bandiera discussing IPA's study on recruiting and motivating health workers in Zambia. Read more about the film at LSE's website, and find more details on the study here.
