CBA and J-PAL Europe Host High-Level Policy Day in Dilijan
23.09.2026
On September 22, a high-level policy workshop entitled “From Evidence to Policy: Building a Culture of Experimentation,” organized by the Central Bank of Armenia and J-PAL Europe, was held at the CBA Dilijan Training and Research Center.
The event opened with remarks by Martin Galstyan, Governor of the Central Bank of Armenia, and Cillian Nolan, Executive Director of J-PAL Europe.
In his remarks, Martin Galstyan emphasized that advancing evidence-based policymaking requires not only the necessary capacity, but also an institutional culture, one that is willing to critically reassess its assumptions, test solutions before scaling them up, and systematically learn from the results. He also underscored the importance of making the use of evidence a systematic and institutionalized component of the policymaking process. This framing reflects the emphasis of his opening remarks on both capacity and culture, as well as on embedding evidence systematically into public decision-making.
The keynote address, “From Evidence to Better Policy: What Does It Take?”, was delivered by Abhijit Banerjee, 2019 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences and co-founder of J-PAL. It was followed by a discussion between Martin Galstyan and Abhijit Banerjee on “The Importance of Evidence-Based Policies”, moderated by Armen Nurbekyan, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Armenia.
The program also featured panel discussions and thematic presentations focusing on evidence-based policymaking, the value of rigorous research, and the application of rigorous evaluation methods in public decision-making.
The workshop concluded with closing remarks by Gevorg Minasyan, Director of the CBA Dilijan Training and Research Center, and Adrien Pawlik, Director of J-PAL Europe’s Innovations, Data, and Experiments in Education (IDEE) program. Their remarks also marked the opening of the Autumn School, which brings together young researchers from Armenia, Europe, and Central Asia to strengthen their knowledge and practical skills in the rigorous evaluation of social policies and programs.
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