On June 25, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) officially launched its Southeast Asia (SEA) office at the Institute for Economic and Social Research at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta.
Addressing over 300 international and local academics, government officials and representatives from civil society organizations, the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said,
"I would certainly like to invite J-PAL to help strengthen our efforts to combat poverty, especially through rigorous studies and impact evaluations of our poverty eradication policies. I would like to obtain insights from J-PAL's findings in order to enhance and improve the ways of how to fight poverty in Indonesia,"
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Also speaking at the launch, J-PAL SEA co-Scientific Director Rema Hanna said,
"J-PAL’s fifth regional office, funded by AusAID, will serve as a hub for J-PAL’s three core activities in Southeast Asia: generating policy-relevant evaluations, building local capacity for rigorous evaluations, and sharing insights from J-PAL’s global network to policymakers in the region."
The establishment of J-PAL SEA is a result of a partnership formed between J-PAL affiliated researchers and the Government of Indonesia, the World Bank, and NGOs to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of national development and social assistance programmes.
Following the launch, J-PAL SEA hosted its first policy workshop where researchers and policy makers came together to identify potential areas of research and policy interest in poverty, governance, education, and health.
- Read more in the original article from J-PAL
