Odisha Partners with J-PAL South Asia to Bring Research Evidence into Policymaking

Bhubaneswar: From education and agriculture to gender and governance, the Odisha Government plans to strengthen the use of research and data in shaping public policies through a three-year partnership with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia.

The State Government on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with J-PAL South Asia to support evidence-based policymaking and advance the goals outlined in Odisha Vision 2036 and 2047. The collaboration will focus on identifying key policy challenges across government departments, generating reliable research evidence and using the findings to improve the design and implementation of public programmes.

The agreement was signed by Rashmi Kabi, FA-cum-Additional Secretary, Planning and Convergence Department, and Shobhini Mukerji, Executive Director, J-PAL South Asia. Chief Secretary Anu Garg, Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary Deoranjan Kumar Singh, J-PAL South Asia Acting Associate Director (Policy) Murali Mallikarjunan and secretaries of various departments were present.

The partnership builds on J-PAL South Asia’s engagement with Odisha since 2006, during which it has worked in areas such as early childhood education, foundational literacy and numeracy, governance, sanitation, agriculture and gender. The organisation, hosted at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in Chennai, will now coordinate with departments to understand their priorities and develop research-based interventions.

An existing example of this collaboration is Barnali, a gender-equity curriculum currently being taught in around 23,000 government schools. J-PAL South Asia is the knowledge and research partner to the School and Mass Education Department and Breakthrough Trust for the initiative.

Steering Committee to oversee partnership

A Steering Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary will guide the collaboration, with senior government officials and J-PAL South Asia representatives as members. It will meet every six months to review project proposals. Nodal officers from both sides will coordinate the activities, while the scope and deliverables of individual projects will be finalised in consultation with the concerned departments.

Speaking at the MoU signing, Chief Secretary Anu Garg said the State’s goal of achieving Viksit Odisha as part of Viksit Bharat required research institutions to contribute to policy research and the testing of innovative approaches.

She identified three key areas of collaboration: bringing relevant global evidence to the State’s priorities, adapting promising approaches to Odisha’s requirements, and designing and testing data- and evidence-based solutions before taking them to scale. She also highlighted the importance of using data and artificial intelligence-based interventions in line with global practices.

J-PAL South Asia Executive Director Shobhini Mukerji said Odisha had a longstanding record of generating and using evidence in policymaking. She said the organisation would work with the State to bring global research findings into local contexts, co-develop programmes, and test and scale interventions that deliver results. She also pointed to Odisha’s existing strengths in monitoring and evaluation as an important foundation for the partnership.

The collaboration is expected to support the State’s efforts to achieve its development targets through better-informed policies and programmes.