JPAL
- LocationIndia
- SectorHealth
- Type of investmentGrant
- Project stageTest & Transition
J-PAL South Asia’s Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action (IDEA) Initiative addresses the opportunity gap that exists with poor administrative data utilisation for policy decision making. GIF funding will enable J-PAL to create innovative partnership models with three Indian state governments, and develop a ‘data use case’ for the flagship health insurance program to demonstrate the potential of using administrative data for policy decisions.
Photo: Lisa Corsetto | J-PAL
The development problem
The large volumes of administrative data that has come with widespread digitization has vast untapped potential for policy makers to help improve the lives of the poor, especially in India’s ‘data rich’ health sector where existing data can be leveraged systematically to inform decisions on health services.
Currently, administrative data use is often limited to routine process reporting and rarely deployed for strategic planning or course correction to improve the way public services work.
The innovation
J-PAL South Asia’s Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action (IDEA) Initiative proposes to address the opportunity gap that exists with poor data utilisation by developing a ‘health insurance data use case’ across three states in India to demonstrate the potential of using administrative data for decision making. In 2018, the Indian government launched the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana health insurance programme to provide the poorest 40 percent of the population, roughly 100 million families, with access to secondary and tertiary care.
Through an innovative partnership model, J-PAL with these three Indian states, will seek to answer key questions using existing data about resource allocation and process improvements to improve the insurance’s benefits for the poorest segments of the Indian population.
GIF's investment
J-PAL will use GIF funding to test and refine this partnership approach for data-use over a two year project and will also learn how to institutionalise effective data-use practices in governments. These lessons will help J-PAL develop its approach and implementation model and be relevant for use in other sectors and geographies.
Why we invested
This innovation sits within GIF’s priority theme of improving how public services work for the poor, and the priority sub-theme of enhancing state capacity. This is a particularly difficult development challenge and one that GIF intrinsically aligns itself with, given our own DNA premised on data and evidence for better decision-making. This investment will help generate insights around both state capacity building and improving a health insurance programme that will improve the lives of the poor.
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