CEGA’s New Year’s Resolutions

How CEGA plans to drive inclusion, innovation, and impact in 2021.

Written by CEGA Director of Operations Lauren Russell and Executive Director Carson Christiano.

Greeting farmers in Rwanda as they come back from working their plots (Credit: Karen O’Hern Photography)

2020 was a sad year. It was a frustrating year. It set us back in immeasurable ways. And it illuminated the ways in which innovation, inclusivity, and openness in global development research can drive better outcomes for people living in poverty. As we begin a new lap around the sun, CEGA reflects on our priorities and commitments — each of which we hope will bring us closer to a world where people are better off because decision-makers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have access to evidence that is credible, responsive to their needs, and leverages the best data and analytical approaches available. To us, this is what impact looks like.

In 2021 and beyond, we resolve to:

1. Integrate advances in data science into development research and policy. CEGA is building a Data Science for Development (DS4D) portfolio that leverages cutting-edge tools and methods in responding to and measuring global poverty. Currently, the portfolio includes our Geospatial Analysis for Development (Geo4Dev) initiative, which hosts conferences and workshops that build the capacity of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to measure poverty-related outcomes in real time using data from satellites, remote sensing networks, and mobile phones. Our Targeting Aid Better Initiative is supporting collaborations with the governments of Ghana, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Togo to dynamically target emergency aid to vulnerable populations by leveraging high-frequency data sources and machine learning. This year, CEGA is committed to expanding this work to make DS4D tools and approaches more effective, more ethical, and more accessible.
2. Promote a culture of inclusion in global development research. Since our founding in 2008, CEGA has worked hard to amplify the voices of LMIC scholars by hosting impact evaluation fellowships and supporting cross-cultural research collaborations through our Global Networks programs. While inclusion is certainly an important goal in its own right, our experience suggests that working closely with local scholars and partners throughout the research-to-policy pipeline can drive impact by ensuring that studies are closely aligned with local needs and priorities. This year, CEGA is committed to identifying and pursuing effective ways to facilitate inclusion that leads to impact, and sharing our experience with the development research community. For example, we plan to launch a virtual fellowship program to reach more promising LMIC scholars with online training and resources; update our RFP and matchmaking protocols to drive up the share of CEGA-funded research that involves an LMIC investigator and/or partner; identify the factors that lead to productive collaborations between LMIC scholars and members of the CEGA network; and raise flexible funds to support promising partnerships and early-stage research collaborations. We look forward to writing more on this important topic in the coming year.
3. Invest in sustained partnerships with policymakers in strategic countries and sectors. As anyone working in the development research space knows, partnerships are key to success. It takes trust, and flexibility, and — perhaps most of all — patience to successfully move from research ideation through design and implementation to policy action. In 2020, CEGA turned the microscope on ourselves and began to parse out the impacts our research investments have had on policy, and the conditions that led to our success. While the path to impact is hardly ever linear — or even clear — we are proud of our successes and keep a running catalogue of Impact Stories on our website. The resulting insights allow us to direct our time and resources towards partnerships that are most likely to lead to meaningful research collaborations and evidence take-up. A great example is new research being conducted by CEGA postdoc Aleksandra Jakubowski in collaboration with former EASST Fellow Ronald Mulebeke and the Government of Uganda. In response to COVID-19, the team — which had already been working together on other projects — was able to quickly mobilize a study to test strategies for increasing mask use. We hope continued investments in strategic partnerships in 2021 — particularly those that actively leverage local knowledge and amplify the voices of LMIC collaborators — will yield additional research opportunities and inform important policy decisions. In 2021, we are committed to scaling up our retrospective policy review and integrating key lessons into CEGA partnership-building activities.
4. Drive more transparent and reproducible research. Openness and transparency remain core to CEGA’s approach, as evidenced by the growth of our Research Transparency portfolio and success of our flagship program, the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences. This year, CEGA is committed to “practicing what we preach” by institutionalizing the use of open science tools and approaches across CEGA’s various research portfolios . And research transparency is only one piece of the puzzle — CEGA recognizes that effective policy decision-making often requires an understanding of the cost of an intervention in addition to its impacts. Additionally, we see real value in driving the adoption of open policy analysis tools to ensure credible policy decision-making, especially when such decisions have implications for millions of people.
5. Expand CEGA’s capacity to deliver clear and effective communications. We cannot understate the importance of clear and effective communications — e.g. our Impact Note, blog, press coverage, social media, and CEGA at a Glance webpage — in driving impact for CEGA. In addition to sharing evidence, our communications raise CEGA’s visibility as a Center, leading to valuable research, training, funding, and policy partnership opportunities. This year, CEGA is working with a team of consultants to identify communications gaps and opportunities, and develop a strategy for synthesizing and summarizing lessons from CEGA research, and ensuring that the right information gets to the right stakeholders at the right time. Importantly, we will ensure that our communications puts CEGA evidence into context and draws on patterns and lessons from portfolios of work in addition to individual studies. We will further build our internal capacity to develop and share innovative research outputs like visualizations and dashboards.

As we embrace this new year with all the hope and optimism we can muster after the long slog that was 2020, we are energized to continue driving inclusive innovation for development — ensuring that policy decisions are informed by rigorous, transparent evidence. As we continue along this journey, we are deeply grateful for our diverse and committed network of affiliated faculty, LMIC thought leaders, partners, supporters, and staff. We invite you to actively engage with the CEGA community as we work to achieve our 2021 resolutions and ultimately improve the lives of people living in poverty.