CLIMATE

Project

Technical Assistance to Measure Air Pollution

Technical Assistance to Measure Air Pollution

To support Pakistan’s Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) through technical assistance to measure intra-urban variation in air pollution across Lahore, using air quality sensors installed sporadically across the city.

Project

Crop Burning in Punjab

Crop Burning in Punjab

This project evaluates if subsidising green agriculture technology can help reduce air pollution by shifting farmers away from crop burning, by considering the impact on fire incidence, pollution, and agricultural yields.

 

Project

PxD Harvest Plus Zinc Biofortified Seeds

PxD Harvest Plus Zinc Biofortified Seeds/ Harnessing Digital Extension to Promote Zinc-Biofortified Wheat Seeds

Raising awareness about the benefits of zinc biofortified wheat seeds that are more resilient to climatic changes as well as being more nutritious as compared to traditional seed varieties.

Project

Climate Change Initiative [PxD Fighting Poverty Through Climate Action]

Climate Change Initiative [PxD Fighting Poverty Through Climate Action]

PxD’s Advisory with leading agronomists and climate change experts provide key recommendations that enable farmers to better adapt their practices to climate change, as well as help farmers mitigate the potential adverse impacts of climate change to the quality and quantity of their yields.

Project

PxD Weather Forecast Based Advisory

PxD Weather Forecast Based Advisory

To provide more high-quality forecasts to farmers by creating a customized “weather-aware” advisory.

Technical Assistance to Measure Air Pollution

Principal Investigator:

Ghazala Mansuri

Ghazala Mansuri

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Research Fellow
Ghazala Mansuri is a Research Fellow at CERP. She is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group of the World Bank. Her research spans four broad areas: rural land, labor and credit markets, the economics of household behavior, and the political economy of participatory development and institutional and governance reforms for development. Her research on the political economy of local development includes a number of evaluations of participatory development programs. Dr Ghazala has published extensively in leading journals in economics and development. She holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.

Ghazala Mansuri

Research Fellow
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Ghazala Mansuri is a Research Fellow at CERP. She is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group of the World Bank. Her research spans four broad areas: rural land, labor and credit markets, the economics of household behavior, and the political economy of participatory development and institutional and governance reforms for development. Her research on the political economy of local development includes a number of evaluations of participatory development programs. Dr Ghazala has published extensively in leading journals in economics and development. She holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.

Ghazala Mansuri

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Research Fellow
Ghazala Mansuri is a Research Fellow at CERP. She is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group of the World Bank. Her research spans four broad areas: rural land, labor and credit markets, the economics of household behavior, and the political economy of participatory development and institutional and governance reforms for development. Her research on the political economy of local development includes a number of evaluations of participatory development programs. Dr Ghazala has published extensively in leading journals in economics and development. She holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.
Ghazala Mansuri

Ghazala Mansuri

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Research Fellow
Ghazala Mansuri is a Research Fellow at CERP. She is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group of the World Bank. Her research spans four broad areas: rural land, labor and credit markets, the economics of household behavior, and the political economy of participatory development and institutional and governance reforms for development. Her research on the political economy of local development includes a number of evaluations of participatory development programs. Dr Ghazala has published extensively in leading journals in economics and development. She holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.

Ghazala Mansuri

Research Fellow
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Ghazala Mansuri is a Research Fellow at CERP. She is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group of the World Bank. Her research spans four broad areas: rural land, labor and credit markets, the economics of household behavior, and the political economy of participatory development and institutional and governance reforms for development. Her research on the political economy of local development includes a number of evaluations of participatory development programs. Dr Ghazala has published extensively in leading journals in economics and development. She holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.

Ghazala Mansuri

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Research Fellow
Ghazala Mansuri is a Research Fellow at CERP. She is a Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction and Equity Group of the World Bank. Her research spans four broad areas: rural land, labor and credit markets, the economics of household behavior, and the political economy of participatory development and institutional and governance reforms for development. Her research on the political economy of local development includes a number of evaluations of participatory development programs. Dr Ghazala has published extensively in leading journals in economics and development. She holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.

The objective of this project is to support Pakistan’s Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) through technical assistance to measure intra-urban variation in air pollution across Lahore; this is done using air quality sensors installed systematically across the city.

As part of the CCDR, the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank is looking to assess socio-economic variation in vulnerability to disaster risk related to climate change. One important activity of the CCDR is to understand the distributional variation and impact of air pollution in Lahore. Air pollution is not only hazardous for public health, but is also an amplifier of other climate risks, such as flooding and heat waves. Despite being ranked regularly amongst the topmost polluted cities in the world, however, ground-level, hyperlocal air pollution data is not available for Lahore due to a lack of continuous, distributional air quality monitoring in the city.

The project involves the following activities:

  • Creation of a deployment experimental design that captures socioeconomic and physical variation across the city. This design takes into account existing sensors that have already been deployed in the city through other efforts, for example, Punjab University air quality monitoring project, and IQair.com sensors.
  • Deployment of 75 sensors across Lahore based on above experimental design.
  • Maintenance of sensors in the city for an initial period of one year, including continuous power supply, network connectivity, data streaming, sensor cleaning, and coordination with vendors for technical support.

Date:

Feb 2022 – Ongoing

Funding Partner:

World Bank

Implementing Partner:

CERP Survey
Tags:

Air Pollution, Air Quality, Disaster Risk, Climate Risks

Crop Burning in Punjab

Principal Investigators:

Kelsey Jack

Kelsey Jack

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Principal Investigator
Kelsey Jack is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative at CERP. Dr Kelsey’s research is at the intersection of Environmental and Development Economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Dr Kelsey’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), directs the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab at UCSB (emLab), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review. Dr Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. Dr Kelsey has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.

Kelsey Jack

Principal Investigator
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Kelsey Jack is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative at CERP. Dr Kelsey’s research is at the intersection of Environmental and Development Economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Dr Kelsey’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), directs the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab at UCSB (emLab), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review. Dr Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. Dr Kelsey has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.

Kelsey Jack

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Principal Investigator
Kelsey Jack is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative at CERP. Dr Kelsey’s research is at the intersection of Environmental and Development Economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Dr Kelsey’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), directs the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab at UCSB (emLab), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review. Dr Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. Dr Kelsey has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.
Kelsey Jack

Kelsey Jack

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Principal Investigator
Kelsey Jack is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative at CERP. Dr Kelsey’s research is at the intersection of Environmental and Development Economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Dr Kelsey’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), directs the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab at UCSB (emLab), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review. Dr Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. Dr Kelsey has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.

Kelsey Jack

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Kelsey Jack is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative at CERP. Dr Kelsey’s research is at the intersection of Environmental and Development Economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Dr Kelsey’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), directs the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab at UCSB (emLab), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review. Dr Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. Dr Kelsey has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.

Kelsey Jack

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Kelsey Jack is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative at CERP. Dr Kelsey’s research is at the intersection of Environmental and Development Economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. Much of Dr Kelsey’s research uses field experiments to test theory and new policy innovations. She has done research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, and Niger. She co-chairs the Environment and Energy sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT (J-PAL), directs the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab at UCSB (emLab), and is an associate editor at the American Economic Review. Dr Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc position at MIT, with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. Dr Kelsey has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN.

,

Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
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Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

,

Michael Greenstone

Michael Greenstone

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Research Fellow
Michael Greenstone is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is also the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Michael was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. Michael’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work involves testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations globally. As a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change. He is also the co-director of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which generates evidence and catalyzes the scale-up of high-impact policy solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation. He created the Air Quality Life Index™ that converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy and co-founded Climate Vault, a 501(c)(3) that uses markets to allow institutions and people to reduce their carbon footprint. Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

Michael Greenstone

Research Fellow
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Michael Greenstone is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is also the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Michael was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. Michael’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work involves testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations globally. As a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change. He is also the co-director of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which generates evidence and catalyzes the scale-up of high-impact policy solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation. He created the Air Quality Life Index™ that converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy and co-founded Climate Vault, a 501(c)(3) that uses markets to allow institutions and people to reduce their carbon footprint. Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

Michael Greenstone

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Research Fellow
Michael Greenstone is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is also the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Michael was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. Michael’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work involves testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations globally. As a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change. He is also the co-director of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which generates evidence and catalyzes the scale-up of high-impact policy solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation. He created the Air Quality Life Index™ that converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy and co-founded Climate Vault, a 501(c)(3) that uses markets to allow institutions and people to reduce their carbon footprint. Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.
Michael Greenstone

Michael Greenstone

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Research Fellow
Michael Greenstone is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is also the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Michael was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. Michael’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work involves testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations globally. As a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change. He is also the co-director of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which generates evidence and catalyzes the scale-up of high-impact policy solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation. He created the Air Quality Life Index™ that converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy and co-founded Climate Vault, a 501(c)(3) that uses markets to allow institutions and people to reduce their carbon footprint. Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

Michael Greenstone

Research Fellow
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Michael Greenstone is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is also the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Michael was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. Michael’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work involves testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations globally. As a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change. He is also the co-director of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which generates evidence and catalyzes the scale-up of high-impact policy solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation. He created the Air Quality Life Index™ that converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy and co-founded Climate Vault, a 501(c)(3) that uses markets to allow institutions and people to reduce their carbon footprint. Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

Michael Greenstone

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Research Fellow
Michael Greenstone is a Research Fellow at CERP. He is also the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Michael was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. Michael’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work involves testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations globally. As a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change. He is also the co-director of the King Climate Action Initiative at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which generates evidence and catalyzes the scale-up of high-impact policy solutions at the nexus of climate change and poverty alleviation. He created the Air Quality Life Index™ that converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy and co-founded Climate Vault, a 501(c)(3) that uses markets to allow institutions and people to reduce their carbon footprint. Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

This project evaluates if subsidising green agriculture technology can help reduce air pollution by shifting farmers away from crop burning, by considering the impact on fire incidence, pollution, and agricultural yields.

Pakistan’s air pollution, some of the most severe in the world, poses a serious public health threat. In Punjab province, home to approximately 110 million people, an estimated 20% of air pollution is caused by burning crop residue, primarily during the narrow two-week period between rice harvest and wheat sowing. Stubble burning is the result of the mechanisation of rice harvest; now, a new generation of mechandised equipment is poised to address the externalities from burning. In 2020, the Punjab Agriculture Department (AgriPunjab) launched a programme to subsidise equipment (rice shredders and Happy Seeders) that incorporates rice stubble back into the soil, mitigating the need to burn. These machines are designed to address stubble burning but may also yield benefits through better soil quality and sowing techniques. In its first two years, AgriPunjab implemented a public lottery to randomly select 500 subsidy recipients, out of approximately 2000 qualified programme applicants in 15 major rice-growing districts in Punjab. With the support of Pakistan’s Punjab Province Department of Agriculture, UChicago, IGC, CERP and PxD are designing an experimental study of the Punjab Agriculture Department’s (AgriPunjab) Mechanised Management of Rice Crop Residue (MMRCR) program. The study will examine the impact of the program, making use of administrative, satellite, and primary data, on the incidence of fires, crop yields, farmer profits, air pollution, and soil quality.

CERP has partnered with UChicago, Precision Development and Government of Punjab to evaluate the MMRCR program. This evaluation will generate results on the intervention’s impact on fire incidence, pollution, and agricultural yields and will produce knowledge that will enable designing possible future interventions that will mitigate crop burning in Punjab, thus reducing smog and improving air quality in the province.

The evaluation of the MMRCR program will use remote sensing data, administrative data, in-field spot-checks for crop residue fires, farmer surveys, and focus groups. In-field spot checks are expected to be completed during the current rice harvest, followed by focus groups planned after rice harvest and wheat planting. Farmer surveys are expected to be completed in later 2022/early 2023 after wheat and rice harvests, respectively. The objective is to combine spot check observations with high-resolution satellite data to train a model that predicts crop burning status across all farms in the sample based on visual indicators.

Date:

2021 – ongoing

Funding Partners:

ATAI – JPAL

Implementing Parntners:

University of Chicago, Precision Development, Agriculture Department GOP, CERP Survey Unit

Tags:

Air Pollution, Crop Burning

PxD Harvest Plus Zinc Biofortified Seeds/ Harnessing Digital Extension to Promote Zinc-Biofortified Wheat Seeds

Principal Investigator:

Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

This Precision Development project focused on raising awareness about the benefits of zinc biofortified wheat seeds that are more climate resilient as well as being more nutritious as compared to traditional seed varieties.

Malnutrition is a longstanding challenge in Pakistan with stark and debilitating effects for affected families. During the 2020-2021 Rabi season, the Precision in Development (PxD) programme hosted at CERP partnered with HarvestPlus, a programme of CGIAR, to promote two varieties of zinc-biofortified wheat seeds in five districts of Punjab province, Pakistan.

Rigorous prevalence studies are limited, however available information suggests widespread zinc deficiency among children in Pakistan: more than one third of preschool-aged children and more than half of primary school children were assessed to be zinc deficient. While data is limited, studies also suggest an alarming rate of zinc deficiency among pregnant women, which may contribute to Pakistan’s poor infant and maternal mortality rates. Pakistan has the most wheat intensive diets in the world and the crop is critical for smallholder communities’ livelihoods and food security. The Zincol-16 and Akbar-19 biofortified wheat varieties developed for the Pakistani market contain up to 26 percent and 30 percent more zinc than traditional wheat varieties. Given that smallholder farmers consume up to 60% of their wheat harvest, the adoption of zinc-biofortified seed by smallholders would have positive implications for the health of their families.

PxD and HarvestPlus partnered on the ‘Harvest Plus Zinc Biofortified Seeds Project’. This involved completing a pilot project which targeted 100K smallholder farmers in five districts of Punjab: Bahawalpur, Rahim yar Khan, Khanwal, Faisalabad and Multan. The methodology for it primarily involved a series of push calls and text messages that were designed and sent out to increase awareness among the farmers.

ZB seeds were chosen for this since they are expected to be more resistant to climatic changes, in particular to heatwaves, floods and droughts, and provide high yields and nutritional value to beneficiaries.

Approximately 1.3 million SMS and 967,668 robocalls were sent to over 100,000 farmers; farmers’ pickup rates averaged 53 percent, and on average they listened to 76 percent of call duration, indicating a high level of interest amongst farmers to receive the digital advisory. Moreover, a helpline was set up to answer farmer queries and to solicit farmers’ feedback via multiple rounds of surveys. After the promotional campaign was completed, a profiling survey was conducted in which over 8,000 farmers were contacted.

Based on our profiling survey, the number of users of Akbar-19 and Zincol-16 has gone up from 131 to 872 this season in the five districts, however, it is important to keep in mind that this rise could be due to more than just our campaign, and other factors such as increased seed availability helping to boost adoption of Akbar-19 could have played a role in the growth in take-up.

Of farmers who reported planting zinc-biofortified wheat, 58 percent reported SMS/Robocalls as their primary source of information about zinc-biofortified wheat seeds, 91.9 percent of survey respondents stated that the advisory content was easily understandable, and 98.6 percent of the farmers reported that it was useful.

A post-harvest survey was completed in May/June 2021 with 679 farmers who had previously indicated that they had used one or both zinc-biofortified seeds in Rabi 2020-2021 season. Due to the absence of a control group, these results are a comparison of the farmers’ yield, income, and general experience as compared to wheat varieties from last season. It was reported that the average yield amounted to 47.95 maunds/acre for Akbar-19 in the Rabi 2020-2021 season, whereas an average of 41.49 maunds/acre has been reported for the Rabi 2019-2020 season. 76.44% of farmers who completed the post-harvest survey reported an increase in their yield this season. Both progressive and smallholder farmers reported an increase of 33% in income from wheat harvest in the Rabi 2020-2021 season as compared to the income earned in Rabi 2019-2020.

While surveys do not reach the threshold of a rigorous evaluation, they do suggest that the pilot campaign to promote zinc-biofortified seeds was quite successful. At a minimum, the pilot suggests that digital information services can be used very effectively to scale the promotion of campaigns to promote nutritious crops at a very low cost per farmer.

Date:

2020 – 2021

Funding Partners:

HarvestPlus, CGIAR

Implementing Partners:

Precision Development, Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, Agriculture Department GOP

Publications
Tags

Malnutrition, Food Insecurity

Climate Change Initiative [PxD Fighting Poverty Through Climate Action]

Principal Investigator:

Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Precision Development (PxD) is intensifying their efforts to provide information to smallholder farmers that will allow them to make informed decisions to reduce the risks that climate change presents to their livelihoods and to enjoin their farming and land management activities in the fight against climate change. PxD is focusing on identifying interventions that can improve smallholder livelihoods whilst incorporating climate adaptation and mitigation efforts into their existing services.

PxD’s advisory has been put together with leading agronomists and climate change experts that provide key recommendations that enable farmers to better adapt their practices to climate change, as well as help farmers mitigate the potential adverse impacts of climate change on the quality and quantity of their yields.

PxD’s systems are designed to scale the delivery of customised digital information to individuals and households so that they act on it to improve their well-being and reduce exposure to risks and disasters such as floods and droughts. Their systems are designed to be scaled; as they scale, average costs fall and they improve the cost-effectiveness of their delivery.

Climate-smart advisory, adaptation, and mitigation efforts are already embedded into their programs across all the districts of Punjab in Pakistan, as well as into the day-to-day agricultural activities that PxD farmers carry out. They focus both on climate change adaptation (reducing potential damage) and climate change mitigation (tackling the causes), as the activities and approaches are distinct.

In Punjab, PxD sends out advisory via robocalls and SMS to over 1.3 million farmers. This advisory covers all major cash crop and several types of livestock in Punjab.

Research Question

  • How climate-vulnerable are the farmers that use PxD’s services?
  • What are the consequences of climate change that are affecting smallholder farmers’ lives?
  • How can we reduce the welfare loss that individual farmers and communities experience, or likely to experience, because of climate change?


Examples of PxD’s work:

  • Some agricultural practices are likely to contribute both to poverty alleviation and climate mitigation if they result in increases in agricultural outputs or income. One such example is promoting optimal and timely application of nitrogen-based fertilizers. PxD’s advisory services in Punjab include recommendations on the optimal application of planting and/or top-down fertilizers. Precise application of nitrogen fertilizers has the potential to cut down farming costs if farmers need to purchase less fertilizer, hence improving smallholders’ agricultural income whilst curbing nitrous oxide emissions.
  • During the summer 2022 flooding in Pakistan, flood warning related advisory sent by PxD enabled some farmers to harvest their crops before the flooding, hence ensuring that they were able to salvage some of their produce.
  • In the recent cotton season, the PxD Advisory recommended the use of yellow sticky cards to farmers to improve their ability to trap and reduce pests. This was also important since lowering the use of synthetic pesticides helps with climate outcomes, improves soil health, and prevents leaching of harmful chemicals and related issues. This led to a sizable reduction in the usage of pesticides and significant cost reductions for farmers.
  • PxD’s recommendations related to livestock include compost management and addition of green fodder to improve feed efficiency.

Date:

2020 – ongoing

Funding Partner:

IFAD

Implementing Partners:

Agriculture Department GOP, IFAD, HarvestPlus, CERP, CFAN, Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, RCDS

Publications
Tags

Climate Change, Nutrition, Food Insecurity, Agriculture

PxD Weather Forecast Based Advisory

Principal Investigator:

Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

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Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Tomoko Harigaya

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Principal Investigator
Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Tomoko Harigaya

Linkedin-in Icon-internet
Principal Investigator
Tomoko Harigaya is a Principal Investigator on Climate Change Initiative Project at CERP. Dr Tomoko is the PAD’s Senior Researcher. She has extensive experience working with development organizations and government agencies on Evaluation Research. She has previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action and consulted for Grameen Foundation, where she designed and oversaw randomized evaluations on Microfinance and Health Programs. Dr Tomoko holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

The IFAD-PxD weather product was motivated by farmer’s desire for granular and actionable weather forecasts. This project has been established to provide high-quality forecasts to farmers by creating customised “weather-aware” advisory. Weather forecasts increase farmer’s ability to choose the best production strategies as well as adapt to volatile climate conditions and extreme weather events.

Locally available forecasts typically have limited value due to low accuracy, short time horizons, inaccessible channels, and poor interpretability. With its expertise in blending behavioural economics, human-centered design, and A/B testing, PxD was well-prepared to close such gaps. Funding through IFAD allowed PxD to invest in weather forecasting product development.

PxD Pakistan has partnered with CFAN to acquire calibrated forecasts at a more granular grid size than have so far been available in Punjab. Weather forecaster CFAN is a global leader in weather and climate forecast tool development and is supplying forecasts and helping translate them into formats most useful for agronomists. CFAN was chosen for their leading meteorological expertise and experience in South Asia.

These forecasts will account for climatic parameters including rainfall, temperatures, humidity, wind speed, as well as extreme weather events like floods, droughts, hails, etc. The weather data here will be obtained at a granular geographical level; tehsil and eventually UC/village level.

These high-quality forecasts will be used to create a customised “weather-aware” advisory for farmers. PxD agronomists and external providers have generated a ‘menu’ of weather advisory structured around the crop cycle that includes pre-planting, planting, vegetative growth, reproductive growth and picking.

This information will be coupled with actionable recommendations to steer farmers towards climate-friendly practices that also reduce their costs (through better timing and usage of inputs), conserve nature (better water management) and ultimately boost yields and incomes for smallholder farmers. The project is currently in the pilot phase. This involves developing an effective product design, soliciting critical feedback from farmers, and evaluating what type, mode, or frequency is optimal. Large scale roll out is expected in 2022 to about 500K farmers in all 36 districts and about 144 tehsils of Punjab. To measure the impact of the new product, three treatment groups are in place: Flagship cotton advisory (Purpose: Control group for comparisons), Flagship and daily weather (Purpose: Identify impact of providing standalone weather forecasts), Custom weather advisory (Purpose: Identify impact of integrating weather into advisory).

Date:

2022 – ongoing

Funding Partner:

IFAD

Implementing Partners:

CFAN

Publications
Tags

Climate Change, Weather, Agriculture