Timeline of MIT Poverty Action Lab

This is a timeline of MIT Poverty Action Lab, a global research center working to reduce poverty through rigorous scientific evidence.

Sample questions

The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:

Big picture

Time period	Development summary	More details

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
2003			The Poverty Action Lab is established at MIT's Department of Economics by professors Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Sendhil Mullainathan. Its mission is to reduce poverty by promoting the use of randomized evaluations, training others in scientific evaluation methods, and advocating for policy changes based on evaluation results. The initial cohort of affiliates includes professors Marianne Bertrand, Dean Karlan, Michael Kremer, Dan Levy, and Edward Miguel. The lab also initiates a partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a nonprofit founded by J-PAL affiliate Dean Karlan.
2004		Team	Rachel Glennerster joins MIT Poverty Action Lab as executive director. Before this, she served as an economic advisor at the UK Treasury and a development associate at the Harvard Institute for International Development. Glennerster provided technical assistance to the UK Executive Director of the IMF and World Bank, later joining the IMF staff in 1997. At the IMF, she focused on debt relief and the organization's response to lessons from the Asian financial crisis.
2005			MIT alumnus Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel, pictured with J-PAL's leadership, supports the Poverty Action Lab with three major endowments, leading to the lab being renamed in honor of his late father, Abdul Latif Jameel, founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel company. J-PAL formally partners with Community Jameel, an organization founded in 2003 to uphold the Jameel family's tradition of supporting social and economic sustainability. This support enables J-PAL's significant growth in subsequent years. J-PAL establishes its training group and offers its first executive education courses in Cambridge, US, and Chennai, India. The affiliate network expands to include 11 professors.
2006			J-PAL receives core support from several prominent foundations and individuals, including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Nike Foundation, Russ Siegelman, and the Doug B. Marshall Jr. Foundation. This support helps J-PAL expand its initiatives and impact. Additionally, J-PAL's affiliate network grows to include 12 talented professors, further strengthening its research and outreach capabilities.
2007			J-PAL South Asia is established at the Institute for Financial Management and Research in Chennai, India, with the support of the Mulago Foundation. J-PAL partners with the Young Global Leaders group to launch the Deworm the World initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This initiative would since expand to reach over 292 million children in India, Kenya, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Nigeria. J-PAL's affiliate network grows to include 15 talented professors, further enhancing its capacity for impactful research and policy advocacy.
2008			J-PAL Europe is launched at the Paris School of Economics to promote the use of randomized evaluations in wealthy countries. J-PAL receives the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Development Cooperation, recognizing its world-class research and significant contributions to development. The award honors originality, theoretical significance, and the ability to push the frontiers of knowledge. J-PAL's affiliate network expands to include 27 talented professors, enhancing its research and policy impact.
2009			Iqbal Dhaliwal joins J-PAL as the founding director of a dedicated policy group aimed at bridging the gap between researchers and policymakers. This group helps governments, NGOs, donors, and the private sector apply evidence from randomized evaluations to their work, contributing to public discourse on social policy and international development. J-PAL Latin America and Caribbean is established at the Pontifícia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile, with support from the Colunga Foundation. The Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) is launched in partnership with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at UC Berkeley, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. J-PAL's affiliate network grows to include 43 talented professors.
2010	April 23		Esther Duflo, the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT, wins the 2010 John Bates Clark medal, a prestigious award given to the best economist under 40. Duflo, known for her influential research using randomized field experiments to combat poverty, is the second woman to receive this honor. The American Economic Association highlights her significant contributions to development economics, noting her role in reshaping the field through microeconomic focus and large-scale field experiments.
2014			The Regional Centers for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) is established at J-PAL South Asia with World Bank support to enhance monitoring and evaluation for governments and civil societies. J-PAL forms the Compass Commission to address major social policy challenges in Chile and propose innovative programs. A long-term partnership with India’s National Academy of Administration begins, offering impact evaluation workshops for senior Indian Administrative Service officials. J-PAL’s research spans seven sectors: Agriculture, Education, Environment and Energy, Finance and Microfinance, Health, Labor Markets, and Political Economy and Governance. New initiatives, Governance Initiative (GI) and Urban Services Initiative (USI), are launched. J-PAL’s affiliate network expands to 64 professors.
2020	July 12		J-PAL, in partnership with AUC, MIT, and Community Jameel, launches J-PAL MENA, a new regional research center based at AUC’s School of Business. This center, J-PAL’s seventh regional office, aims to alleviate poverty and improve lives in the Middle East and North Africa through evidence-based policymaking. J-PAL MENA aims to focus on using Nobel Prize-winning experimental approaches to inform decision-making, collaborating with governments and NGOs to bridge research and policy, and providing training for policymakers and researchers. The center is to address regional challenges such as low educational outcomes, unemployment, women's agency, resource strain, and the impact of conflict.
2023	April 28	Partnership	J-PAL North America announces six new partnerships with government agencies and nonprofits through its Evaluation Incubators. These collaborations aim to design randomized evaluations on various social policies, including housing stability, procedural justice, transportation, and income assistance. The partners include Minnesota Management and Budget, which is expected to evaluate a guaranteed basic income pilot for low-income families, and King County Metro, which would assess an on-demand transportation service for travelers with disabilities. Additionally, organizations like One Roof, the Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia, and Pierce County Human Services would focus on reducing homelessness and improving housing stability. These evaluations aim to generate evidence to inform policy and improve program effectiveness.
2023	July 23	Team	Silvia Prina, Associate Professor of Economics, is invited to join J-PAL as an affiliate by its Executive Committee, including notable members such as Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. As a J-PAL affiliate, Prina is granted access to shared services like joint hiring, field staff training, research and policy support, and opportunities to apply for research grants. She is expected to engage in J-PAL activities such as teaching executive education courses, policy outreach, presenting at conferences, responding to research project matchmaking opportunities, and peer-reviewing grant applications.
2023	September 6		Shikhar Agarwal, Chairman of the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board, and Sobhini Mukherjee, Executive Director of J-PAL South Asia, sign a letter of intent to join SARWA. The signing takes place in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, in the presence of Vini Mahajan, Secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation. The collaboration aims to design, test, implement, and scale solutions to reduce air and water pollution in Rajasthan. The initiative, advised by Professor Namrata Kala, seeks to improve environmental quality and economic growth by fostering evidence-based policies at both national and state levels. The program launch event is organized by J-PAL South Asia in partnership with Community Jameel.
2023	October 18	Partnership	J-PAL partners with the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) to establish the UM6P-J-PAL Agricultural Lab for Africa (UJALA) in Morocco. UJALA aims to enhance food security for small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by designing and implementing impact evaluations. Funded by the OCP Foundation, UJALA would be led by MIT's Tavneet Suri. The lab aims to focus on five key policy areas, including effective food and agricultural subsidies, fertilizer customization, reducing reliance on imported food, adopting new agricultural technologies, and connecting farmers to competitive markets. The goal is to scale successful programs and improve food security across the region.
2024	January 15		Esther Duflo is appointed President of the Paris School of Economics (PSE) for a five-year term, succeeding the late Daniel Cohen. She is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT and a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). In her new role, Duflo aims to further PSE's influence in teaching, research, and public policy. Established in 2006 as a Foundation for Scientific Cooperation, PSE is a leading global economics institution.
2024	March 27	Partnership	The Government of India’s Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) partners with J-PAL South Asia to expand the 'Samaveshi Aajeevika' program, aimed at improving livelihoods for rural women. The program aims to adapt BRAC's Graduation Approach, which has been proven effective in alleviating extreme poverty through randomized evaluations by J-PAL and Innovations For Poverty Action. J-PAL South Asia would support the MoRD by integrating scientific evidence into decision-making and establishing a Gender Impact Lab to drive women-led development. The initiative is supported by ASPIRE and aims to replicate successful poverty reduction strategies across India.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by FIXME.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

Feedback and comments

Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:

• FIXME