CHENNAI: As per the announcement made by AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa in the Assembly on August 8 this year, the State on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the world renowned Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) with the objective of maximising the government’s anti-poverty programmes.
The MoU with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - based J-PAL and Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in Chennai will help to institutionalise an evidence-based approach to policymaking, an official release here said.
In her announcement under Rule 110, Jayalalithaa had stated that evidence-based policy making was an important element in effective governance and hence the government would lay emphasis on the proper monitoring and evaluation of ongoing schemes and projects.The pact will enable involvement of some of the best development economists and social scientists in the world in the formulation and evaluation of various schemes in the State in key sectors like school education, health, poverty alleviation and skill development.
The MoU is a step towards realising Tamil Nadu Vision 2023 goal of becoming India’s most prosperous and progressive state, having fully eradicated poverty, the release said. Key elements of the draft MoU include a policy dialogue by which the State government and J-PAL will identify top policy priorities of the government and hold discussions to jointly come up with innovative potential solutions which can be field-tested rigorously before a state-wide scale-up. It will also identify policy innovations tested elsewhere in India and globally that could be replicated in Tamil Nadu.
Based on the policy dialogue with the departments, five projects have been identified for evaluation during 2014-2015. This will include evaluating primary school education interventions with the School Education Department, improving youth labour market outcomes through a survey in four districts with the Labour and Employment Department. Another project is aimed at inculcating healthy habits to reduce the burden on non-communicable diseases, engaging women to improve breastfeeding, evaluating weekly Iron Folic acid Supplementation (WIFS) and anaemia monitoring. More projects would be identified for evaluation in the next two years, the release said.
J-PAL is a leading international research network known for its rigorous impact evaluations of development programmes, and has over 100 affiliated professors from top universities. The MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, S.Krishnan, Principal Secretary (Planning, Development and Special Initiatives) on behalf of the State Government and Dr Shobini Mukherji, Executive Director, J-PAL, Sheela Balakrishnan and K Ramanujam, both Advisers to the government.
