Center for Effective Global Action

The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), earlier known as the Center of Evaluation for Global Action, is a research network at the University of California that advances global health and development through impact evaluation and economic analysis. The Center's researchers use randomized controlled trials and other rigorous forms of evaluation to promote sustainable social and economic development around the world.

CEGA was established in 2008 by Economics Professor Edward Miguel and colleagues at UC Berkeley. The Center’s founders, including Haas School of Business Professor Paul Gertler, are considered pioneers in the field of impact evaluation. They have led some of the most influential field experiments in recent years, including evaluations of school-based deworming in Kenya and of the Oportunidades program in Mexico.

The Center is guided by the principle that economic policy and social programs should be based on scientific evidence. In support of this vision, CEGA researchers rigorously test anti-poverty strategies and disseminate their findings to governments and other decision-makers. The Center also invests in developing junior researchers in the U.S. and in low- and middle-income countries.

CEGA is currently led by Faculty Director Edward Miguel and Executive Director Temina Madon.

CEGA focuses its resources in three core areas: research, training and policy impact.

The Center's research program draws on the empirical work of more than 25 faculty members at the University of California. These researchers are united in their use of rigorous statistical tools to measure the impacts of social programs in low and middle income countries. The CEGA toolbox includes randomized evaluation (long-trusted in the medical field) as well as regression discontinuity, panel analysis, instrumental variables, and other rigorous quasi-experimental methods. When used appropriately, each of these methods can create equivalent treatment and comparison groups for use in estimating an intervention's impact.

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