Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government Wednesday signed a three-year MoU with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South Asia to strengthen evidence-based policymaking across various departments, officials said.
The partnership, anchored in the Planning and Convergence Department, will support the state’s Vision 2036 and 2047 through research, policy support and capacity-building, they said.
Under the agreement, Chennai-based J-PAL South Asia will work with government departments to identify priority policy challenges, generate rigorous evidence, and translate research findings into actionable policy recommendations, officials said.
The partnership builds on J-PAL South Asia’s engagement with Odisha since 2006 in areas such as early childhood education, foundational literacy and numeracy, governance, sanitation, agriculture and gender.
Chief Secretary Anu Garg said the collaboration would help the state achieve its goal of a ‘Viksit Odisha for Viksit Bharat’.
Our vision commits us to engaging research institutions in policy research and piloting innovations, as well as adopting data- and AI-based interventions in line with global best practices, she said.
Garg said the partnership would focus on bringing global research findings to the state’s policy priorities, adapting successful approaches to Odisha’s needs and testing data-based solutions before expanding them.
J-PAL South Asia Executive Director Shobhini Mukerji said Odisha had a long history of using research evidence in policymaking.
The organisation looked forward to working with the state government to develop programmes, test their effectiveness and scale up successful interventions, she said.
