The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), founded by Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo, an economist, will extend its collaboration with the Andhra Pradesh government to help achieve the target set under the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Duflo and her team interacted with Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Amaravati on Monday, March 28 and explored ways of working with the government.
“We have had a productive engagement with the Chief Minister and been looking forward to collaboration in the future. J-PAL has been working in Andhra Pradesh (on a pilot basis) and we've been looking forward to step up the collaboration,” Duflo said in a statement after the meeting. She said J-PAL has been working in 20 Indian States for the past 15 years.
Duflo, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who won the economics Nobel in 2019 along with two others, said the government has been implementing schemes for the betterment of the poor people. “We have shared some of our own experience. We hope to continue working together towards the shared goal of ending poverty and bettering people's lives,” she added.
According to a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office, during the meeting, CM Jagan explained to Duflo’s team the measures taken by the government towards implementation of various schemes in the areas of agriculture, education, health, housing and women empowerment along with those being carried out for poverty alleviation. According to the CMO, Duflo said that suggestions on the welfare schemes being implemented by the state government will be given after a field observation.
Later, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma made a presentation to the J-PAL delegation on the initiatives of the government to achieve the targets of sustainable development goals. Esther Duflo's team members Shobini Mukherjee, Kapil Viswanathan, Aparna Krishnan, Kunal Sharma, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma and other officials were present in the meeting.