Innovations for Poverty Action

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is a research and policy nonprofit founded in 2002 that designs, rigorously evaluates and refines solutions to improve the lives of people living in poverty. Its work centres on randomized controlled trials and other rigorous impact evaluations, generating evidence on what works in anti-poverty interventions and helping policymakers and practitioners put that evidence to use in programming and policy.

The organisation operates through 15 country offices, with work in more than 60 countries and over 1,000 projects completed or underway. Its technical domains span randomized controlled trials, rigorous impact evaluation, evidence-based policy research, data generation and measurement, and monitoring and evaluation. Sector coverage includes health and nutrition, education, financial inclusion, agriculture, climate and the environment, and poverty alleviation more broadly.

Two lines of work define its offering: designing and conducting rigorous evaluations of anti-poverty programmes, and evidence-to-policy services that support high-quality data generation and its use in decision-making. IPA describes dedicated local staff as central to this work, and it builds relationships with governments, NGOs and communities to connect researchers with decision-makers.