Center for Effective Global Action

**CEGA improves the lives of people living in poverty by generating insights and tools for decision-makers backed by rigorous, inclusive, and transparent research.** The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) is a hub for research, training and innovation headquartered at the University of California, Berkeley. We generate insights that leaders can use to improve policies, programs, and people’s lives. Our academic network includes nearly 200 faculty, 75 scholars from low- and middle-income countries, and hundreds of graduate students — from across academic disciplines and around the world — to produce rigorous evidence about what works to expand education, health, and economic opportunities for people living in poverty. **Why we do it** Every year, governments, NGOs, and philanthropists around the world invest billions of dollars in interventions and programs designed to reduce poverty. Good intentions aside, how do they know if their investments are working? While private companies regularly invest 10 to 15 percent of their revenue in research and development, social sector actors spend far less to rigorously test their policies and programs. This leaves policymakers to make highly consequential decisions without rigorous evidence about what worked—or didn’t work—in the past and what is most likely to drive intended outcomes in the future. CEGA was established to generate more empirical research about the impacts of economic and social development programs, and to make sure those insights inform policymaker decisions. Central to CEGA’s approach is bringing ideas and techniques from a diverse set of academic disciplines—economics, psychology, computer science, engineering and more—and including more people with first-hand experience with the problems and solutions our work addresses. CEGA researchers import ideas and techniques from other disciplines–like psychology and sociology–to help understand and solve complex economic challenges.