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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Daniel Gilligan

Director, Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion (PGI)

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Bio

Dan Gilligan is Director of the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, and previously served as Deputy Director in IFPRI’s former Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division from 2015 to 2023. He is also Co-Lead of the CGIAR Research Initiative on Gender Equality (HER+). His research addresses the impact of interventions in social protection, agriculture, and nutrition; gender dimensions of intrahousehold decision-making; the design of programs to improve women’s well-being; and the economics of household investments in childhood nutrition and education. He has expertise in the design and conduct of randomized impact evaluations and many of his studies are based on mixed methods evaluations combining qualitative methods with field experiments. From 2013 to 2016, he was Adjunct Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. His research has been featured in The New York Times, the Economist, The Atlantic online, and in blogs at VoxDev, the World Bank, and The Guardian. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.

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Publications

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Journal Article

Men can cook: Effectiveness of a men’s engagement intervention to change attitudes and behaviors in rural Ethiopia

2025Alderman, Harold; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hidrobo, Melissa; Leight, Jessica; Mulford, Michael; Tambet, Heleene
Details

Men can cook: Effectiveness of a men’s engagement intervention to change attitudes and behaviors in rural Ethiopia

Graduation model interventions seek to address multiple barriers constraining households’ exit from poverty, however, few explicitly target restrictive gender norms. Using a randomized controlled trial design, combined with three rounds of data, we investigate the impacts on gender equitable attitudes and behaviors of a graduation program that seeks to address multiple constraints for those in poverty and improve restrictive gender norms in Ethiopia. We find that at 1-year follow-up all treatment arms lead to improvements in men’s gender equitable attitudes and their engagement in household domestic tasks as reported by both men and women; but at 3-year follow-up, impacts are only sustained in the treatment arms that introduced men’s engagement groups after the 1-year follow-up survey to further promote improvements in equitable gender norms.

Year published

2025

Authors

Alderman, Harold; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hidrobo, Melissa; Leight, Jessica; Mulford, Michael; Tambet, Heleene

Citation

Alderman, Harold; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hidrobo, Melissa; Leight, Jessica; Mulford, Michael; and Tambet, Heleene. 2024. Men can cook: Effectiveness of a men’s engagement intervention to change attitudes and behaviors in rural Ethiopia. World Development 185(January 2025): 106781.

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Behaviour; Cooking; Men; Rural Areas

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106781 Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Journal Article

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Working Paper

Would you rather? Household choice between cash transfers or an economic inclusion program

2024Allen IV, James; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Kurdi, Sikandra; Yassa, Basma
Details

Would you rather? Household choice between cash transfers or an economic inclusion program

We study households’ choice between continued cash transfers and a new economic inclusion program—two global prevalent social protection programs—offered by the Egyptian government. Lower-than-expected early adoption of the new program is correlated with differing perceptions on its design. We randomize official messaging to households describing the new program’s (i) consumption support duration and (ii) income-earning potential. Both treatments increase respondents’ likelihood of recommending the new program. A theoretical model estimated using households’ perceptions of program design predicts interest in the new program, and how it diminishes with increasing effort costs, asset loss probability, risk aversion and loss aversion.

Year published

2024

Authors

Allen IV, James; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Kurdi, Sikandra; Yassa, Basma

Citation

Allen IV, James; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Kurdi, Sikandra; and Yassa, Basma. 2024. Would you rather? Household choice between cash transfers or an economic inclusion program. MENA Working Paper 44. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/158340

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Northern Africa; Social Protection; Poverty; Poverty Reduction; Cash Transfers

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Securing food, building livelihoods? A 15-year appraisal of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme

2024Hoddinott, John; Berhane, Guush; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hirvonen, Kalle; Kumar, Neha; Lind, Jeremy; Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum
Details

Securing food, building livelihoods? A 15-year appraisal of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme

-We assess the impact of a large-scale social protection intervention, Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), over a 15-year period. -We find that the PSNP had a positive impact on food security but inconsistent impacts on assets. There were positive impacts on fertilizer use, investments in terracing, and cereal yields but only when the program was twinned with complementary programming. -The PSNP enabled households to be more resilient to covariate shocks. There were no adverse incentive effects on labour supply or fertility. There is some evidence that it improved schooling outcomes and reduced child labour but not child nutrition outcomes. -Payment levels, uncertainty about when payments would take place, and processes associated with making payments all played a role in generating these mixed impacts. -These also illustrate that while complementary programming can enhance the impact of transfers, adding complementary programming at scale is challenging when resources are limited.

Year published

2024

Authors

Hoddinott, John; Berhane, Guush; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hirvonen, Kalle; Kumar, Neha; Lind, Jeremy; Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum

Citation

Hoddinott, John; Berhane, Guush; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hirvonen, Kalle; Kumar, Neha; Lind, Jeremy; Sabates-Wheeler, Rachel; and Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum. 2024. Securing food, building livelihoods? A 15-year appraisal of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme. WIDER Working Paper 2024/76. Helsinki: UNU-WIDER. https://doi.org/10.35188/UNU-WIDER/2024/539-4

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Food Security; Social Protection; Fertilizers; Terrace Cropping; Cereal Crops; Resilience; Labour; Nutrition

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.35188/unu-wider/2024/539-4 Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Working Paper

Blogs

Egypt’s experience bridging cash transfers and an economic inclusion program for sustainable social protection
IFPRI Blog
 | 
December 18, 2024

Egypt’s experience bridging cash transfers and an economic inclusion program for sustainable social protection

By James Allen IV, Daniel Gilligan, Sikandra Kurdi, and Basma Yassa

A path for moving out of poverty.

Do ultra-poor graduation programs build resilience against droughts? Evidence from rural Ethiopia
IFPRI Blog
 | 
March 04, 2024

Do ultra-poor graduation programs build resilience against droughts? Evidence from rural Ethiopia

By Kalle Hirvonen, Daniel Gilligan, Jessica Leight, Heleene Tambet, and Victor Villa

Safety nets can buttress households against climate shocks.

School feeding programs improve nutrition and child growth across generations: Evidence from India
IFPRI Blog
 | 
August 12, 2021

School feeding programs improve nutrition and child growth across generations: Evidence from India

By Suman Chakrabarti, Samuel Scott, Harold Alderman, Purnima Menon, and Daniel Gilligan

Research shows for the first time the benefits of a key type of social protection program extend years later to the children of recipients.

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Events

SPIR II RFSA Learning Event: Impact results workshops
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

December 9 to 10, 2024

SPIR II RFSA Learning Event: Impact results workshops

December 9, 2024 | 9:30am to 12:00pm (Africa/Addis_Ababa) | Video Recording | Presentation December 9, 2024 | 1:00pm to 3:30pm (Africa/Addis_Ababa) | Video Recording | Presentation December 10, 2024 | 9:30am to 12:45pm (Africa/Addis_Ababa) | Video Recording | Presentation Click HERE to view the agenda. The Strengthen PSNP Institutions and Resilience (SPIR II) Resilience Food […]

Learning Support for a Multi-Country Climate Resilience Programme for Food Security
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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November 5, 2024, 9:00 – 10:30 am

Learning Support for a Multi-Country Climate Resilience Programme for Food Security

The Learning Support for a Sub-Saharan Africa Multi-Country Climate Resilience Program for Food Security, launched in 2023, aims to enhance food security and climate resilience across 14 African countries. This collaboration among CGIAR, the World Food Programme, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) has three pillars: scaling disaster risk financing, transforming food systems […]

Deepening Social Protection Systems: Enhancing livelihoods and health in Ethiopia
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

April 17, 2024, 10:30 – 12:00 pm

Deepening Social Protection Systems: Enhancing livelihoods and health in Ethiopia

Hybrid Event: April 17, 2024 at 10:30am-12:00pm EDT. This event will present findings from a randomized controlled trial of Strengthening PSNP Institutions and Resilience (SPIR), a graduation model program embedded within the PSNP that is led by World Vision, in collaboration with CARE and ORDA, and with support from the Ethiopian government and USAID.

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News

September 22, 2020 | In the News

Cash assistance against corona crisis (Bistandsaktuelt) 

Bistandsaktuelt published an article on social protection in the form of cash payments to help prevent millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa from being thrown into extreme poverty because of the corona pandemic.  Deputy Division Director (PHN) and Senior Research Fellow Dan Gilligan states, “We are holding our breath to see if it will really explode in a large number of countries in […]

March 04, 2019 | In the News

What happens when you incentivise primary education in Uganda (VoxDev)

VoxDev published an op-ed regarding primary education incentivez in Uganda by Deputy Division Director Daniel Gilligan and Research Fellow Naureen Karachiwalla. Their research found that incentivizing teachers for achievement can increase education attainment when paired with adequate instructional resources.