New Year, New Goals: CEGA’s 2022 Resolutions

CEGA’s Director of Operations Lauren Russell and Executive Director Carson Christiano share the center’s ambitions and priorities for 2022.

A grandfather and his grandson in Karnataka, India | Maya Ranganath

2021 reminded us how much evidence really matters. CEGA research on the impacts of lockdowns, behavioral nudges, social distancing, and the targeting and delivery of emergency aid generated important insights for policymakers seeking to protect their citizens from the widespread health and economic consequences of COVID-19. Meanwhile, CEGA research influenced policy in numerous other ways. We are energized by these accomplishments and remain focused on our ultimate goal of driving better policy through data and evidence in 2022 and beyond.

Below we outline specific goals for CEGA that we believe will generate innovative, transparent insights leaders can use to improve policies, programs, and lives.

In 2022, CEGA strives to:

1. Launch new research portfolios aligned with academic, donor, and policy priorities. CEGA is incubating several new initiatives that will explore critical policy questions and have strong potential to inform decision-making. The new Digital Agricultural Innovations and Services Initiative (DAISI) will fund novel research on the availability, quality, and reach of digital tools that connect small-scale farmers to agricultural services. A second phase of our Digital Credit Observatory (DCO) will study the impacts of digital credit products and consumer protection measures, with a new focus on data privacy. CEGA will also introduce new work on forced displacement, beginning with a systematic review on the evidence surrounding early childhood education and livelihood interventions in refugee settings. In 2022, CEGA is committed to leveraging cutting-edge methods and partnerships to answer policy-relevant questions with the best data and analytical tools available.
2. Promote a culture of inclusion at CEGA and across the global development research community. Core to CEGA’s mission and identity as a research center is our Global Networks portfolio, which empowers scholars from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to lead and collaborate on rigorous impact evaluation research. Over the past decade, CEGA has provided training and mentorship in rigorous impact evaluation and implementation science methods to nearly sixty scholars from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. Our experience suggests that actively including local scholars and partners in our work can drive impact by ensuring that research is closely aligned with local needs and priorities. This year, CEGA is excited to identify and pursue effective strategies for facilitating inclusion that lead to impact, and to share our insights with the broader development research community. In partnership with several African scholars, CEGA will co-lead the development of a review paper documenting the state of inclusion in development research, including the potential benefits and costs of promising inclusion strategies. We will further revisit opportunities to diversify existing CEGA research portfolios, beginning with a new Regional Scholars Program that will provide dedicated funding for LMIC researchers applying to DAISI. Internally, CEGA will continue to establish and update practices that promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) among our affiliates, fellows, advisory boards, and staff.
3. Integrate data science tools into global development research and policy. CEGA’s data science for development (DS4D) portfolio leverages new types of data and analytical approaches to address challenges related to poverty. We are particularly interested in the targeting, design, and delivery of social safety nets and emergency aid, with a focus on LMICs — to guide decision-making and reach those with the greatest need. We will continue to advance frontier research enabling more targeted and responsible policymaking including global poverty mapping and MOSAIKS, a new low-cost platform using machine learning and satellite imagery to estimate socio-economic conditions worldwide. This year, CEGA is committed to expanding our DS4D research portfolio, by creating new tools and learning modules, and building a diverse team of faculty and staff that can provide management and data science support to CEGA-funded research teams and government partners.
4. Improve the transparency, reproducibility, and policy relevance of CEGA research. CEGA prioritizes the openness and transparency of research, both for the sake of credibility — data and analyses with implications for many should be publicly scrutinized — and for the sake of inclusion — open data and evidence is more accessible, and therefore, more useful to researchers and decision-makers. In 2022, CEGA will redouble our efforts to promote ethical, transparent, and reproducible research practices that can improve the integrity of science and inspire better public policy. Specifically, we will invest in the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) — including the Social Science Prediction Platform (SSPP) and Social Science Reproduction Platforms (SSRP) — Open Policy Analysis (OPA), and Cost Transparency Initiative (CTI) — all of which seek to improve the quality, credibility and relevance of evidence.
5. Invest in communications to strengthen policy impact. Clear, strategic, and integrated communications allows CEGA to advance our mission. This year, CEGA will increase our investments in communications and targeted outreach to bolster the impact and influence of our research in policy decisions and program choices. In order to achieve this, we have created a dedicated communications vertical and will recruit an inaugural Director of Communications. We continue to carefully consider how to strategically share evidence with the right people, in the right format, at the right time, putting CEGA evidence into context and teasing out patterns and insights from portfolios of research in addition to individual studies. In 2022, we will continue to build our internal capacity to develop and share new evidence through reports, visualizations and other interactive content.

At CEGA, we are committed to working with our partners around the world to ensure that decisions affecting millions of people living in poverty are backed by rigorous and transparent research. We couldn’t do this without our diverse network of collaborators and supporters. As we tackle these goals, we invite you to actively engage with our work — read about our research, attend our events, follow us on social media, and share data and resources. Thank you for your continued support of our center.