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Building Impact Through Partnership: The Journey of J-PAL MENA at AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business

Business schools play a crucial role in community development, contributing to economic growth and social progress. They act as key drivers of innovation, education, and leadership, significantly impacting the communities they serve. Business schools, such as the Onsi Sawiris School of Business at The American University in Cairo (AUC), offer more than just degree programs. They serve various stakeholders in society and are increasingly involved in community development activities. The school’s ecosystem, which encompasses teaching and learning, research, and service, is designed to address local contexts and tackle societal issues. In emerging economies, business schools often serve as conveners of conversations about economic development, including efforts to combat poverty, through their diverse offerings and collaborative partnerships. They engage with stakeholders both on and off campus, including faculty, corporate, and social partners, equipping them with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to break the cycle of poverty and promote economic growth.

One of the leading global research centers committed to helping reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is guided by scientific evidence is the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). It is supported by over 1,000 researchers from various universities worldwide. These researchers conduct randomized impact evaluations to address key questions in the fight against poverty. The primary goal is to enhance lives through evidence. By analyzing economic trends and social data, they offer valuable insights into the causes of poverty and recommend effective strategies to tackle it. This research can help policymakers design programs that promote economic inclusion and support development and growth. Additionally, J-PAL organizes seminars and forums that bring together academics, industry leaders, and policymakers to collaboratively address poverty-related issues and identify areas for improvement, including, but not limited to, capacity building for researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and donors who create, use, and promote evidence-based decision-making.

In July 2025, the Onsi Sawiris School of Business and J-PAL marked five years of partnership in fostering a culture of evidence-based decision-making and usage to combat poverty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This initiative is driven by a vision to connect research and policy through collaboration rooted in local contexts and to develop a growing network of policymakers and researchers dedicated to using evidence for social impact.

How did this multi-stakeholder collaboration come together? When did it all begin? Who are the key partners? What has been accomplished over the past five years, and what are the goals moving forward? The following are key highlights that showcase a journey of increasing societal impact and community development based on a shared vision by a seamless network of collaborators from diverse backgrounds, including academia and philanthropy, all motivated by achieving a scaled and sustainable impact on society.

In 1989, reflecting the shared value placed on education for development, the Abdul Latif Jameel family’s longstanding connection with AUC, which dates back to the 1960s, took a significant step by establishing the Jameel Center for Middle East Management Studies (JC) through a philanthropic endowment by Abdul Latif Jameel–a Saudi entrepreneur and visionary who founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Group in 1945, laying the foundation for one of the most diversified family-owned businesses in Saudi Arabia–and Yousef Jameel. This gift was designated to house the Department of Management at the downtown campus. The JC, as it was popularly known, opened its doors in 1989 and soon became a leading hub for innovative management education and training across the Middle East.

In 2003, the Poverty Action Lab was established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by professors Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Sendhil Mullainathan to transform the way the world addresses the challenges of global poverty.

In 2005, the lab partnered with Community Jameel, founded and chaired by Mohamed Jameel KBE, an independent, global organization dedicated to advancing science to help communities thrive in a swiftly changing world. After the partnership, the lab was renamed the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in honor of Abdul Latif Jameel. His dedication to community development and social responsibility inspired the creation of Community Jameel— the group’s philanthropic arm. Through this foundation, his legacy of improving education, fighting poverty, and promoting cultural and scientific exchange continues to flourish.

In 2008, when AUC moved to the New Cairo campus, the School of Business was housed in the Abdul Latif Jameel Building.

In 2015, J-PAL started working with the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD). The partnership focused on conducting randomized evaluations of SFSD’s locally developed programs, which aimed to create sustainable jobs, improve education, and increase access to microcredit in Egypt.

In 2018, J-PAL established its presence in the MENA region by opening an office at the AUC School of Business. This partnership was a strategic move to localize J-PAL’s global mission and to enhance capacity for evidence-based policymaking in Egypt, with a focus on the region.

Also, in 2018, J-PAL launched the Bab Amal (Door of Hope) Project—a transformative social protection program aimed at expanding its reach to 100,000 households by 2028 in the governorates of Assiut and Sohag, two tremendously underserved areas in Upper Egypt. The project has been successful in lifting families out of extreme poverty through a sustainable and comprehensive pathway that integrates social protection, enhanced livelihoods, financial inclusion, and social empowerment.

In 2019, J-PAL co-founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, along with long-term affiliate Michael Kremer, received the Nobel Prize in Economics for their pioneering work to reduce global poverty.

In 2020, following several successful projects, J-PAL expanded its office into a regional hub. The office, known as J-PAL MENA at AUC, was officially launched and is located within the School of Business.

Building on the interconnected mission of teaching, research, and service, faculty from the Onsi Sawiris School of Business have been closely involved in J-PAL MENA’s diverse portfolio of research projects that tackle pressing development challenges in Egypt and the wider MENA region. Their work spans impact evaluations of microcredit products in Upper Egypt, studies on job-matching services and job fairs to improve labor market outcomes, a pilot evaluation of small-scale biogas digesters and rural energy access, and analyses of labor market information exchange across the South Mediterranean, as well as interventions addressing irregular migration.

In 2024, the School of Business was renamed Onsi Sawiris School of Business, thanks to a generous gift–the largest single gift in the university’s history–from the NNS Foundation, the Naguib Sawiris Charitable Fund, Naguib Samih Sawiris, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, and Orascom Construction.

It is ironic that, for nearly 40 years, AUC, Community Jameel, the Sawiris Family, their corporate affiliates and foundations, and J-PAL had dual partnerships, until they came full circle and united, sharing a common vision and purpose to support poverty alleviation through J-PAL MENA.

Over the years, J-PAL has grown into a global network of affiliated professors who conduct randomized evaluations to address key policy issues in the fight against poverty. Today, J-PAL’s staff includes more than 500 researchers, policy experts, educators, and trainers based in over a dozen countries, including the United States, Indonesia, France, India, Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire, and Egypt.

From the outset, the goal of J-PAL MENA has been to collaborate closely with governments and development practitioners to foster a culture of learning—one where programs are rigorously tested, adapted, and scaled based on what works to improve development outcomes. The partnership with the Onsi Sawiris School of Business provided J-PAL with a strong academic foundation and access to a network of researchers, students, and policymakers. This collaboration has allowed J-PAL MENA to conduct rigorous impact evaluations, strengthen local research capacity, and foster a culture of evidence-based decision-making throughout the region. J-PAL MENA researchers, students, and policymakers have access to over 1,200 summaries of randomized evaluations conducted by the network’s affiliates across various sectors in 98 countries.

Since its inception, J-PAL MENA has made significant progress in advancing its mission. It has conducted over 60 randomized evaluations across 9 countries in the MENA region, covering key sectors such as education, labor markets, gender, health, social protection, and environmental sustainability. Sample projects include initiatives in education aimed at improving student learning outcomes, such as teacher training programs, curriculum reforms, and technology-assisted learning tools; in youth employment, evaluating entrepreneurship training and access to finance programs for young people to identify effective strategies for reducing youth unemployment and promoting economic inclusion; and in health, exploring ways to enhance access to and improve the quality of healthcare services.

In addition to several social protection programs aimed at tackling poverty and reducing inequality, such as improving data quality for effective targeting of those in genuine need, enhancing food subsidy programs, refining cash transfer initiatives, and improving health insurance subsidies, this work has been supported through collaboration with over 20 donors and 70 partners, all committed to generating evidence to inform policy and practice. Some of the key projects include, but are not limited to, the following:

In 2022, one of the key milestones for J-PAL MENA was the creation of the Egypt Impact Lab (EIL). EIL is a joint effort between J-PAL MENA and Egypt’s Ministry of Planning, Economic Development, and International Cooperation, housed within the National Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, to improve the cost-effectiveness of Egypt’s poverty reduction policies and guide scale-up decisions across priority sectors. The lab’s goal is to institutionalize the use of evidence in policymaking and to improve development outcomes for Egyptians. EIL aims to foster a culture of evidence-informed decision-making throughout the government by increasing partners’ ability to use evidence in program design and implementation, leveraging administrative data to support evidence generation, and strengthening regional research capacity. To date, more than 500 government officials and development practitioners have been trained through various programs and workshops, including courses on evaluating social programs, leading evidence-based decision-making, fundamentals of randomized evaluations, data collection for randomized evaluations, and more. EIL works with international organizations and academic institutions to exchange knowledge and best practices.

EIL emphasizes four main thematic areas: (a) social protection and poverty alleviation; (b) employment and the development of micro, small, and medium enterprises; (c) women’s empowerment and family planning; and (d) environment, energy, and climate change. Its work focuses on government development priorities and aims to enhance the impact of key national initiatives. Notably, EIL operates on three core pillars: (1) generating evidence on priority questions and sharing insights on EIL themes; (2) building the government’s capacity to utilize evidence; and (3) strengthening local knowledge ecosystems to influence policy. In addition to conducting evaluations, J-PAL MENA and EIL are dedicated to building the capacity of policymakers and practitioners.

J-PAL MENA has a particular interest in nurturing the next generation of academic researchers in the region. In 2023, the MENA Scholars Fellowship was launched to mentor and support early-career scholars, creating a strong pipeline of MENA-based researchers capable of leading rigorous evaluations. Through the fellowship, participants gain hands-on experience in cutting-edge projects in collaboration with J-PAL-affiliated researchers, while also expanding their academic networks. This initiative is reinforced by J-PAL MENA’s growing research community, which now includes more than 120 collaborators worldwide and over 25 researchers conducting randomized evaluations across the MENA region, including faculty from the Onsi Sawiris School of Business. Together, these efforts are strengthening the local and regional research ecosystem.

In 2025, the Hub for Advanced Policy Innovation for the Environment (HAPIE) was launched to test and scale innovative solutions that improve access to clean air and water and to support more effective environmental policymaking. Moving forward, HAPIE will provide policymakers with robust evidence on the effectiveness of technological and policy solutions to address the twin challenges of climate change and poverty in the MENA region. Complementing this work, the Morocco Employment Lab, established in 2020, was expanded in 2024 into the Morocco Innovation and Evaluation Lab, reflecting an enlarged mandate to collaborate with government partners across diverse sectors, including education, social protection, firm growth, agriculture, and the environment.

The collaboration between J-PAL MENA and the Onsi Sawiris School of Business has created a vibrant platform for knowledge exchange and policy dialogue. Together, they host seminars, workshops, and discussions that bring evidence to bear on Egypt’s development priorities. Notably, the Global Evidence for Egypt Spotlight Seminar Series is funded by UNICEF, while South-South Learning exchanges are supported by J-PAL and its partners. Building on this foundation, J-PAL MENA leverages strong partnerships and a growing portfolio of evaluations to ensure that rigorous research translates into action, contributing to reforms in education, social protection, and public health.

With a solid foundation, strong partnerships, and an expanding portfolio of impactful projects, J-PAL MENA is well-placed to create meaningful change in the region. Their work demonstrates the power of research and collaboration in tackling complex development issues and enhancing lives.

The journey of J-PAL MENA at AUC, which is still in its early stages but has achieved some remarkable progress, is one of vision, partnership, and impact. From its beginnings to the establishment of J-PAL MENA, the journey reflects a strong commitment to not only informed policymaking through technical rigor but also to cultivating relationships, building trust, fostering shared ownership, and creating space for learning and growth. The future holds numerous opportunities for education, knowledge sharing, and expanding impact across the MENA region, driven by a renewed sense of purpose, determination, and ambition.

About the authors: Iqbal Dhaliwal is the Global Executive Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Sherif Kamel is a Professor of Management and Dean of the Onsi Sawiris School of Business at The American University in Cairo.

28 August 2025
Issue #55