‘When Wonky Works’ subject of May 9 Chanchlani lecture

The 10^th Annual Chanchlani Global Health Research Award & Lecture focused on innovative and effective solutions to global poverty. Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance at Northwestern University, Dean Karlan, received this year’s award and delivered his talk titled “When Wonky Works – Success, failures, and learning gaps in implementation science for public policy”.

As the founder of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and co-director of the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University, his research focuses on the microeconomic issues of poverty which includes sustainable income generation for those in abject poverty.

During his talk, Karlan explored the efficacy of micro-finance, health-care initiatives, and agriculture as global poverty solutions.  He emphasized the lack of evidence on what works to help the poor, and that the evidence that does exist is often under-utilized by those who run programs. He remarked that, “this leads to ineffective programming, wasted resources, and therefore we need to advocate for a world with more evidence and less poverty”.

Discussing his work with IPA, he reflected on its goal to ensure that existing gaps in research were addressed, specifically through relationship management between academics, implementers, and funders. Combining behavioural economics with rigorous evaluation – their focus is to create high-quality evidence and then share evidence strategically to influence local and global debates, and ultimately improve policies that fight poverty.

The Chanchlani Global Health Research Award was created by the Chanchlani family and McMaster University in 2012 as an annual event to recognize a leading scholar in the field of global health.