A new partnership between Pharo Foundation & CEGA will invest $100,000 in research collaborations in the Horn of Africa to generate rigorous evidence about critical issues facing the region. With Pharo Foundation’s support, CEGA will competitively award grants through its Development Economics Challenge to researchers whose projects focus on early childhood education, access to water and sanitation, and employment and productivity outcomes in Somaliland, Ethiopia, Rwanda, or Kenya – aligning closely to Pharo Foundation’s core missions.
CEGA’s Development Economics Challenge, founded in 2016 as a research competition for Economics PhD students at the University of California, Berkeley, has evolved over the years. What began as a way to enable junior researchers to take a leadership role in designing and implementing field studies has become a tool for seeding rigorous research in under-studied areas critical to improving the lives of those living in poverty. Awardees now include PhD candidates at Berkeley and other CEGA-affiliated universities as well as faculty within the CEGA network.
What has remained consistent is the Challenge’s focus on rigorous evaluation of programs or policies designed to alleviate poverty and that promote social or economic development in low- and middle- income countries. Researchers can build upon existing research, but often explore entirely new opportunities that bring innovation to the field of global development. The Challenge also incentivizes early-career economics researchers to carefully consider and plan for the impact of their findings on policy and decision-making, which is also focus for us at Pharo Foundation and as such this allows the visions of the Foundation and CEGA to meet.
CEGA has already allocated over $55 million to over 600 projects in 61 countries and Pharo Foundation is delighted to be partnering with such an established organisation. We look forward to the first grants from this new partnership being disbursed, with this expected to take place in Autumn 2024.