Welcome to the website of the research project titled Impact Evaluation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India. The study is a collaborative effort of researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, D.C., Cornell University, Ithaca and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and funded by the International Initiative on Impact Evaluation (3ie). The goal of the study is to thoroughly evaluate the impacts of India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the largest public works project in the world.
This website serves three broad goals. First, it provides a space for sharing research findings generated by this project. Second, as part of the project, IGIDR hosted an international conference on March 26-28, 2014 at IGIDR, Mumbai to bring together researchers working on different aspects of the impact of the MGNREGA. The website hosts a conference webpage which provides information on the conference and video links to the proceedings. Third, the website serves as a resource centre that enables visitors to access relevant material on the MGNREGA available elsewhere along with photo essays and field notes contributed by guest researchers and activists.
The call for proposals is now closed. This conference is over.
The sessions for the day will include presentations on theorizing employment guarantee, targeting, implementation and accountability in the MGNREGA. Two afternoon sessions will devote attention to impacts on participants on dimensions such as incomes, expenditure, assets and financial inclusion and also to those pertaining to migration, education, nutrition and gender.
The sessions for the second day address the important question of impacts on agriculture and cultivation practices, apart from spillover effects on labour markets, wages and inequality. Presentations will also address the issue of asset creation and the quality and productivity of these assets.
The third day will take stock of the lessons learnt from academic research and identify particular issues that merit attention from the perspective of both research and policy making. A Round Table of various stakeholders will focus on state experiences with implementation and also the issue of MGNREGA assets, their quality and productivity. A Valedictory Panel will conclude the conference.
New Resource
A photo essay on MGNREGA assets
Jun 29, 2015