Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)

🗣️Discover the latest advancements in data privacy and financial innovation with Nitin Kohli, Staff Scientist at CEGA! Nitin will be speaking at the Fifth Workshop on Credit Card Lending, Consumer Finance, and the AI Revolution, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on June 27-28. He will be joined by leaders from the Federal Trade Commission, The World Bank, European Central Bank, Google, and more. 🔒Nitin will share insights from CEGA's newly launched Data Privacy Lab (DPL), where he is Principal Investigator. Nitin will delve into the proliferation of mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries and its impact on the world’s most vulnerable populations. He will discuss how millions of historically “off the grid” individuals are now passively generating digital data used to make life-altering decisions, such as eligibility for government benefits and consumer loans. DPL is shaping privacy-enhancing solutions in low-and-middle-income countries and training the next generation of privacy engineers. Learn more about DPL here: https://lnkd.in/e-_J6Ecx 📶At the workshop, discover the latest advancements in data privacy. Using data from real-world applications in Togo and Nigeria, Nitin will illustrate the tradeoff between privacy and predictive accuracy then demonstrate a way for humanitarian programs to responsibly use personal data. Explore how Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can drive responsible data use and improve social welfare in this CEGA’s blog series: https://lnkd.in/e_REdHn8 ⏳The Workshop is happening tomorrow! Secure your spot now: https://bit.ly/4c6SE6r

👩🏾In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women still handle 84 percent of childcare. As nuclear families rise across 32 sub-Saharan countries, the need for formal childcare solutions is clear. 🔍Learn more in this study by Sara Lowes and coauthors: https://buff.ly/4cntWyR

🙌Celebrate World Refugee Day with new data from Syrian Refugee Study In a world where displacement disrupts millions of lives, understanding the realities faced by refugees is crucial. Over the last decade, humanitarian crises have driven an unprecedented surge in the number of forcibly displaced people globally, reaching over 100 million—the highest in recorded history. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for nearly half of the internally displaced population, reaching 34.8 million in 2023. 📊 The Syrian Refugee Life Study (S-RLS) steps in to fill this critical gap. Hosted at CEGA, this study has followed 2,500 Syrian refugee households in Jordan over four years. By providing detailed data on economic, social, and emotional wellbeing, S-RLS is shedding light on a population often overlooked and hard to track. Learn more about this study here: https://lnkd.in/enpwPtzi 📅 S-RLS has released four years of comprehensive panel data from its longitudinal study on the Harvard Dataverse. Edward Miguel, Sandra Rozo, Emma Smith, and other researchers behind the study hope to encourage more research into the refugee crisis and inform better policy and practice. For more details, read the full press release: https://lnkd.in/e8sNWd_G 🔍 Explore the data: https://lnkd.in/eRrzcwkT #WorldRefugeeDay

✨Applications are now open for the Spring 2025 CEGA-Special Call Fellowship! 🎓 Are you a scholar from Sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America passionate about economic development and research? The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) invites you to apply for a fully-sponsored, four-month rigorous research fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley  during the Spring 2025 academic semester. This fellowship is your chance to: 🌍 Conduct impactful research on displacement, early childhood development, or youth livelihoods. 🎓 Work alongside top researchers at UC Berkeley. 📚 Gain new skills and enhance your research capabilities. 🤝 Network with global experts and peers.  Who should apply: 👩🏿🦱We strongly encourage female scholars and those with lived experiences of displacement to apply.  📊 Low- and middle-income country scholars with a PhD or currently enrolled in a PhD program in economics, social sciences, or related fields.  🏫Researchers affiliated with an institution in their home region.  ✈️Individuals committed to returning to their home country after the fellowship. Deadline to apply is July 15. Visit our website to learn more and submit your application today: https://lnkd.in/eXk_AUyu

🌍How does economic development impact the relationship between climate and conflict in Africa—a region that's seen significant armed conflict in recent decades? By creating a detailed dataset combining climate shocks and conflict events with economic measures, Marshall Burke, Joel Ferguson, Solomon Hsiang, and Edward Miguel discover that higher national GDP per capita reduces the conflict risk linked to rising temperatures. Learn more about how stronger economies mean better state capacity to handle climate shocks: https://buff.ly/45pT7OE

🎉CEGA is thrilled that our session, "Future-Proofing Social Impact for Privacy," has been selected for this year's SOCAP Open! This workshop, led by Nitin Kohli (CEGA), Megan Price (Human Rights Data Analysis Group), and Valentina Rozo Ángel (Colombian Truth Commission), will explore AI for innovation and privacy issues in social initiatives. Learn more👇

🌱 The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is celebrated each year to raise awareness of the presence of desertification and drought, as well as methods of prevention. Around the world, low-cost technologies are used to capture rainwater to be used for agriculture. In Niger, researchers Jenny Aker and Kelsey Jack, supported by CEGA and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab’s (J-PAL) Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative, used training and cash transfers to test barriers to the adoption of demi-lunes, a rainwater harvesting technique that can capture rainwater for a short period of time (2-3 days), stymy soil runoff, and increase soil nutrient content. Results? 🔎 Researchers found that providing farmers with training increased adoption, but conditional or unconditional cash transfers had no additional effect in the medium- or long-term. Adoption of demi-lunes led to an increase in agricultural output, a reduction in land turnover, and adoption among neighboring farms and spillover farms as well up to three years later. Informed by the results, the researchers and the Niger Government are rolling out a scale-up program in 400 villages, and over 6,000 households will benefit from the training. Read more: https://buff.ly/3VGVvNM #ATAI_Research

🚨 CEGA is #Hiring 🚨 Join us as a full-time Project Manager for the Cost Transparency Initiative (CTI) and Impact Data and Evidence Aggregation Library (IDEAL). 📍Berkeley-based with fieldwork in LMICs 💵$78,000 – $99,224 ⏰Apply by Jun 21 Learn more:

📢 The agenda for the 12th Annual Africa Evidence Summit is out! Join CEGA and NIERA for #AES2024 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on July 10-11. This free two-day event brings together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the latest findings on economic development and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. 🔑Key topics include health, financial inclusion, gender, education, and labor markets. We'll also discuss research transparency, inclusive research, and how to turn evidence into policy. 🗣️Esteemed speakers include Dean Karlan, Professor at Northwestern University and Chief Economist at USAID, Catherine Kyobutungi, Executive Director at APHRC, and Fortunata Songora Makene, Executive Director at ESRF. 📝Review our agenda here: https://buff.ly/3VuWrns

In this new #CEGABlog, Dan Cassara, former Project Manager for the Digital Credit Observatory, explores the transformative realm of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), focusing on Homomorphic Encryption (HE). This technology enables encrypted data to be processed without decryption, offering a breakthrough solution for compliance with stringent data protection laws across different countries. Key highlights include: 📈With the digital financial boom, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, robust data protection is more crucial than ever. 🏛️Many countries, including Kenya, have implemented data protection laws that restrict cross-border data sharing, posing challenges for fintechs operating in multiple markets. ✅With advances in computing power, HE is becoming feasible for real-world applications and reduces the costs of financial services without compromising data privacy. 👉 Read the full blog for a comprehensive understanding of HE and its impact on global financial practices: https://buff.ly/4e7gzV5