Bridging evidence and policy: New seminar series highlights role of science in strengthening Egypt’s social protection programmes

As successive economic shocks continue to threaten Egypt's poor, a new seminar series, ‘Bridging evidence and policy' (BEP), asks how can policymakers scale up efforts to keep the most vulnerable afloat. Launched jointly by the Egyptian Food Bank (EFB)’s Growth Lab, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD), under the auspices of Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity, the series will examine the importance of evidence-based policymaking for social protection. The ethos of the event echoes that of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab in the Middle East and North Africa (J-PAL MENA), which has conducted 34 impact evaluations of social policy in Egypt spanning social protection, labor, health, education and gender, and whose methodology also informed IFPRI's impact evaluation of the Egyptian Food Bank’s general feeding programme, one of the largest RCTs implemented in Egypt.