Request for Proposals: J-PAL Governance Initiative
First Round – Fall 2011
J-PAL’s Governance Initiative (GI) funds randomized evaluations of strategies to improve governance
in developing countries. GI is now calling for proposals from J-PAL affiliates, for both Pilot Studies and
Full Research Projects. For this round of grants, proposals are due July 29, 2011.
Background: Governments around the world spend billions of dollars annually to provide basic
services and development programs aimed at improving the lives of those living in poverty. At the
same time a large number of foundations and international aid organizations channel their
development dollars through government-run programs. But the effectiveness of such public spending
is often compromised by a number of connected factors: policies that do not reflect the needs or
wishes of the people, leakages due to corruption, lack of community participation, and poor oversight
of public spending. Despite the crucial importance of good governance for development, many
questions about how to improve governance remain unanswered. As a response to this need GI will
fund randomized impact evaluations of programs designed to improve participation in the political and
policy process, and reduce leakages in public programs.
A Framework for Governance: GI approaches the problem of good governance as a two-part
principal agent problem. In the first part of the problem, the principals are the citizens, who vote to
elect as their agents, politicians whose job is to enact policies that are in line with the voters’ interests.
In the second part of the problem, politicians, in turn, become principals themselves, who then must
work with their agents, civil servants and other service providers, to actually implement those policies.
Given this framework, GI tackles the subset of governance issues we believe are most theoretically
and practically fertile, focusing on two key links: improving voter control over politicians and policy,
and improving the incentives for civil servants to do their jobs properly without corruption.
Focus: GI will fund randomized impact evaluations of programs and policies aimed at (i) improving
governance in developing countries and or (ii) build a better bridge between field experiments and
underlying economic theories. GI’s research priorities are identified in a Governance Review Paper
prepared by J-PAL that also summarizes existing research from around the world on governance
issues, mostly from the literature in economics and political science with an emphasis on field
evaluations. The Governance Review Paper is organized around the following five themes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The impact of political participation on policy outcomes, growth and citizen satisfaction.
The determinants of political participation: institutions, demographics and information.
Reliable measures of corruption and leakages.
The impact of corruption and leakages on individuals, firms, the provision of goods and
services and the correction of externalities.
5. The determinants of leakages and corruption: incentives and the structure of bureaucracy,
technology, transparency, judiciary system and anticorruption in the long run.
For this round, as long as the proposals fall within any of these five themes, GI will not prioritize
proposals from one of these research areas over another. If a researcher is uncertain about whether a
research project is eligible for GI, please contact the GI at the contact information below.
www.povertyactionlab.org/GI
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Funds: In the current round, GI expects to award up to approximately $700,000 in research grants.
However, if an unexpectedly large number of quality proposals are received, the earmarked amount
may increase. We anticipate that subsequent calls for proposals will be issued twice per year, though
this is subject to change. Two types of proposals will be considered:
Full Research Projects: These grants are for research projects at a mature level of development.
Not only must the research question be clear, but also the applicants must demonstrate a
commitment from implementing partners, a method of randomization, well-defined instruments,
and sample size estimates. There is no funding cap for these grants, however it is expected that
awards will be in a range between $100,000 and $250,000 to cover project costs for up to 3 years
ahead.
Pilot Studies: These grants will be for a maximum amount of $50,000. They are for studies with a
clear research question, but for which the design and implementation of an evaluation requires
further testing and pilot data.
The pool of eligible applicants is comprised of t J-PAL affiliates. All proposals may include
collaborators outside of this network but the principle investigator (PI) must be a J-PAL member.
Applications: Proposal applications are due on July 29, 2011. To apply, please fill in the Proposal
Application Form (attached) and submit by email to [email protected]
In addition, when submitting a full proposal to GI, applicants:
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
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Must attach a letter of support from their partner (intervention-implementing organization), if
applicable.
Are encouraged to concurrently apply for approval from their respective Institutional Review
Boards (Human Subjects Committees). The award of any GI grant is contingent on approval from
the host-institution’s IRB (unless that IRB defers to the judgment of MIT’s IRB, as is often the
case) as well as the IRB at MIT, the Committee On the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects
(COUHES).
Are encouraged to submit the application to their office of sponsored programs or contracts
department as MIT will need official acceptance of the proposal and budget by your institution to
process the Subaward. You can do this after submitting to the GI Board, but doing so before the
award decision will lessen delays.
In case of being selected for funding, applicants will be asked to participate in a harmonization
process to ensure consistency and comparability across studies, which may include among other
things:
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Submitting completed harmonization worksheet along with first annual report. Updating it annually
along with annual reporting requirements.
Collecting and reporting program cost data that allow J-PAL to conduct cost effectiveness analysis
of the underlying program being evaluated.
Sharing data collection instruments and methodologies with other grantees.
Publishing data collected online at the end of the evaluation.
Applicants submitting proposals agree to volunteer to peer review proposals in a future round for
which they are not requesting funding.
www.povertyactionlab.org/GI
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Review Process: Selection of awards will follow a two-stage process:
First, proposals will be distributed for peer review to referees selected from a roster of researchers
and policy experts on governance issues. The roster will be assembled by the three co-chairs of GI.
Each application will be reviewed by 3 referees: one member of GI’s Review Board, one J-PAL
affiliate not on the Review Board, and one policy expert in governance.
Second, application proposals will be reviewed and scored by the five members of the Review Board
consisting of the three co-chairs of the Governance Initiative and two other JPAL affiliates chosen by
the J-PAL Directors. All Board Members competing in the current round of GI grants are required to
recuse themselves from this review and replacements chosen by the three Directors. Proposals will
be scored using the evaluation criteria described below. Based on the scores and the comments of
the referees the Board will vote on the status of the application. The status of an application can fall
into four categories: (1) approved (unconditionally), (2) conditional approval (with minor revisions or
clarifications), (3) revise and resubmit on this or a subsequent round, and (4) not approved.
If you would like to appeal a decision of the GI Board, you may contact GI’s Initiative Manager
Cristobal Marshall [email protected] within one week of the results’ announcement detailing the
reasons for the request for reconsideration (maximum two pages in length). This will then be
communicated to the GI Board.
Detailed criteria on which the projects will be evaluated and scored are listed on the last page of this
document.
Timeline
Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday July 29, 2011
Thursday September 15, 2011
Week of September 19, 2011
Friday September 30, 2011
First Round RFP Issued
Proposal Submission Deadline
Peer Review Deadline
GI Board Meeting
First Round Results announced
Administrative Notes: Budgets, Requirements, and Process
Budget:
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Overhead charges under the Governance Initiative are capped at 9% of total direct costs;
It is your responsibility that the budget you submit is correct and follows your host institution’s
policies for costs. If you wait until an award has been made by the GI Board before getting
approval from your planned host institution, you risk having an award that your institution can not
accept. We recommend that as soon as you submit your proposal to GI (if not before), you send it
through your host institution for their review and acceptance.
Please note that this applies to all projects, including those going through regional J-PAL offices
and IPA. You should make them aware of your plans as early as possible.
www.povertyactionlab.org/GI
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Requirements:
If your proposal is accepted for award, the actual funds will be provided under an award from MIT to
your host institution. To ease the processing of this, it is strongly recommended that at some point
before the GI award is announced you:


Secure formal submission documents of the proposal from your institution to the GI. While you
can submit a proposal directly to the GI as part of the RFP process, any eventual award will
require proof of acceptability from your institution.
Secure IRB approval from your host institution for any human subjects involvement in your project.
MIT will require proof of this prior to executing the award with your institution.
Process:
The process MIT follows for these awards is:
 You receive the award notice from the GI Board;
 If not already submitted, we will request the two items noted above: your institutions approval of
the proposal and your institutional IRB approval.
 We will provide you with forms to complete for the MIT IRB; we do need their approval as well, but
if you already have approval this shouldn’t be a problem.
 We will establish an account with award funds at MIT.
 MIT will establish a Subaward under that account with your institution.
Our goal is to get this done within 60 days of receiving all your forms. Unfortunately this isn’t always
possible, but we will set the period of the award to start from the GI award date (assuming IRB
approval is in place).
www.povertyactionlab.org/GI
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Proposal Application Form
First Round – Fall 2011
Instructions: The proposal is comprised of a cover sheet, a narrative (not to exceed 5 pages in
length), a Budget (use the enclosed form), and Letters of Support from implementation partner and if
available then also from potential scale-up partners.
Your narrative should clearly describe the underlying project and the evaluation including a summary
of the policy problem that motivates this research, description of the treatment, evaluation design,
target population and implementing partners. Please also mention if the project has scale-up potential
and/or the program costs and impacts can be used to generate cost effectiveness analysis. The
narrative should also address each of the topics listed in the Evaluation Criteria listed at the end of
this RFP.
Step 1: Save the coversheet and your 5-page narrative as a single word file, titled
[PI Name]_[Topic Name].doc(x)
Step 2: Fill in the Budget Form and save as a single excel file, titled
[PI Name]_Budget.xls(x)
Step 3: Submit PDF of letter(s) of support from partner (implementing) organizations.
Note that for Pilot Studies, support letters are encouraged but not required.
Step 4: Submit an email with all of the above attachments to [email protected]
The deadline for submissions is Friday July 29, 2011.
www.povertyactionlab.org/GI
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GI Coversheet
First Round – Fall 2011
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION
CO-INVESTIGATOR(S) AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION
TITLE OF PROPOSAL
COUNTRY
PARTNER(S)
CONTACT (Name, Email, Phone)
CO-FUNDER(S)
FUNDED AWARD (PI, Project Title, Amount)
GI FUNDING REQUEST (Check box to right if application is for pilot funding only.)
REQUESTED
$
TOTAL
CO-FUNDED
Pilot study:
$
GRANT PERIOD
START DATE:
END DATE:
(yyyy-mm-dd)
(yyyy-mm-dd)
INSTITUTION
TO RECEIVE
AWARD*
CONTACT FOR
CONTRACTING
ISSUES
* Please indicate the institution that will actually receive the grant funds.
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GI Proposal Budget
Budget Line Items
Year 1
Personnel
Year 2
Year 3
Total Cost
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Materials and Supplies
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Field Research Costs / Sub-Award(s)
(Field RAs, Travel, Survey)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0
0
0
0
Position/FTE/Annual Base Salary
Fringe Benefits
Description/rate
Travel (PI, etc)
Flights, accommodation, per diem
Person/Activity/Organization/etc (Insert rows if necessary)
Personnel
Travel
Survey Costs
Office expenses
Other
Implementation Costs
Total Costs
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Evaluation Criteria
Relevance
Does the study address questions crucial to understanding pressing issues on governance in
developing countries?
Contribution
Does the study make a significant contribution toward advancing knowledge in the field? Does it
answer new questions, or introduce novel methods, measures or interventions? Is there academic
relevance? How does the study compare with the existing body of research? Does the research
strategy provide a bridge between a practical experiment and underlying economic theories?
Value of
research
Is the cost of the study commensurate with the value of expected lessons learned?
Technical
design
Viability of the
project
Does the research design appropriately answer the questions outlined in the proposal? Are there
threats that could compromise the validity of results? If so, does the proposal sufficiently address those
threats?
Is the relationship with the implementing partner strong and likely to endure through the entire study?
Are there any other logistical or political obstacles that might threaten the completion of the study, for
example, government authorization or Human Subjects review?
Policy
Relevance
Will results from the intervention have broader implications? How, if at all, will the “lessons learned”
have relevance beyond this test case? Is there demonstrated demand from policy makers for
more/better information to influence their decisions in this area?
Publishing data
Will the data collected during the evaluation be made publicly available? What data will be published 2
years after projects start, 3 years after the project start and at the end of the project?
www.povertyactionlab.org/GI
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