Egypt Impact Lab

A new collaboration between the Middle East and North Africa regional office of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and Egypt’s Ministry of Planning and Economic Development aims to strengthen the effectiveness of Egypt’s poverty alleviation policies through rigorous evaluation and innovation.

The new initiative, the Egypt Impact Lab, will connect academics with government partners to rigorously evaluate the impact of promising and innovative government programs. Results from these evaluations will inform decisions to scale up the most effective programs across the nation, potentially reaching millions of low-income people.

The launch of the Egypt Impact Lab reflects the critical importance of poverty alleviation in Egypt, where nearly one-third of the population lives below the poverty line. The lab’s research and policy work will revolve around top government priorities, including reducing poverty in rural Egypt, improving the effectiveness of social protection programs, promoting microenterprise development, and increasing access to economic opportunities and family planning to empower women.

The lab will work with key partners in the Egyptian government, including the Ministry of Social Solidarity; the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency; the National Council for Women; and the National Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. Through these partnerships, the lab will strengthen the impact of major national programs and initiatives, including Hayah Karima, an initiative to improve the quality of life for rural Egyptians, and the National Family Development Program, focused on empowering women and families.

Through this work, the Egypt Impact Lab is designed to help build a culture of evidence-informed decision-making across government by building partners’ capacity to use evidence in program design and delivery.