About ODA
ODA measures the opportunities people have and the agency they can exercise, and tests which economic and policy conditions expand both.
Mission
Development is usually tracked by what people lack: income, schooling, health care, basic services. Those numbers matter. But they say little about what people can do with what they have, or which choices are open to them. ODA works on that second question.
We build and test measures of opportunity and agency, link them to the conditions that shape them (labor markets, public services, prices, shocks and institutions), and ask which policies widen the range of lives people can choose. We work across the Global South. We publish openly, report our uncertainty, and treat the validity of our measures as a research question in its own right.
Counting what people lack is not enough
Two households with the same income can face very different choices. One has a school nearby, a clinic that opens and a job market that pays for skills; the other has none of these. Poverty statistics rarely see the difference. ODA builds the measures that do, and asks which policies change it.
- ConditionsWork, services, prices, shocks
- OpportunitiesWhat a person could do or be
- AgencyChoices made and acted on
- OutcomesWellbeing achieved, which feeds back into conditions
What sets ODA apart
The freedom side, measured.
Most research centers count deprivation or evaluate programs. ODA measures opportunity and agency, and ties them to the structure of the economy.
Validity before volume.
We publish how well our measures work, including when they fail.
Built in the South.
ODA works from Lima, and its research and editorial choices are made close to the places it studies.
Governance
ODA is an independent initiative founded and directed by Paola Ballon. An advisory board will be announced on this page.