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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

Kalyani Raghunathan

Kalyani Raghunathan is Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in New Delhi, India. Her research lies at the intersection of agriculture, gender, social protection, and public health and nutrition, with a specific focus on South Asia and Africa. 

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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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experts

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: Voluntary take-up of a poverty graduation program among cash transfer recipients

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

Would you rather: Voluntary take-up of a poverty graduation program among cash transfer recipients

THIS IS AN INITIAL PUBLICATION. THE FINAL VERSION WILL BE AVAILABLE IN DECEMBER 2024. We study how households in Egypt’s national cash transfer program decide to voluntarily join a new government-run poverty graduation program. Using a randomized experiment, we test official video messages providing respondents with new information on: T1) the duration of the cash transfers after joining the graduation program and T2) expected monthly income from the asset provided by the graduation program. Both video messages increase respondents’ beliefs on their respective topics and interest in recommending the graduation program to others. The evidence is consistent with a theoretical model where new information increasing the expected returns for the graduation program consequently increases preferences for the new program, though estimating the model reveals other factors also likely affect household decision-making. The findings highlight the importance of designing poverty graduation programs that provide compelling economic incentives relative to existing social protection programs.

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: Voluntary take-up of a poverty graduation program among cash transfer recipients. 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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Report

Impact evaluation of the economic inclusion programme in Kenya: Baseline report for cohort 2

2024Abay, Kibrom A.; Ayalew, Hailemariam; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hidrobo, Melissa; Kimathi, Sally; Kosec, Katrina; Mekonnen, Yalew
Details

Impact evaluation of the economic inclusion programme in Kenya: Baseline report for cohort 2

Graduation and economic inclusion programs complement cash or food transfers with multisectoral investments in asset building, income generation, skill training, and access to financial services and markets to strengthen resilience and opportunity for households who are poor (Andrews et al., 2021). Compared to classic social assistance programs that offer regular cash or food transfers to ensure minimum consumption levels, these programs aim to enable beneficiaries to invest in assets and skills that can make them more productive. Following promising results from initial studies on multiple economic Photo Credit: Peter Lowe / CIMMYT and social outcomes (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2015; Bandiera et al., 2017; Banerjee et al., 2021), these graduation and economic inclusion programs are increasingly being taken up by governments to complement their national social assistance programs. In 2019 the Government of Kenya’s (GoK) State Department of Social Protection and Senior Citizen Affairs, Directorate of Social Development, initiated the Kenya Social and Economic Inclusion Programme (KSEIP). The KSEIP is designed to complement and build on the flagship National Safety Net Programme (NSNP) and target those being served by it, moving beyond cash transfers to an integrated Social Protection system to enhance social and economic inclusion services and shock-responsive safety nets for poor and vulnerable households. The KSEIP is expected to contribute towards Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Year published

2024

Authors

Abay, Kibrom A.; Ayalew, Hailemariam; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hidrobo, Melissa; Kimathi, Sally; Kosec, Katrina; Mekonnen, Yalew

Citation

Abay, Kibrom A.; Ayalew, Hailemariam; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Hidrobo, Melissa; Kimathi, Sally; Kosec, Katrina; and Mekonnen, Yalew. 2024. Impact evaluation of the economic inclusion programme in Kenya: Baseline report for cohort 2. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Capacity Development; Impact Assessment; Economic Integration; Data

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Report

Blogs

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.

Social safety nets are crucial to the COVID-19 response. Some lessons to boost their effectiveness.
IFPRI Blog
 | 
June 18, 2020

Social safety nets are crucial to the COVID-19 response. Some lessons to boost their effectiveness.

By Daniel Gilligan

Many countries have already implemented social assistance programs, but more challenges lie ahead.

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Events

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

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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.

Micronutrient Forum: 6th Global Conference
IFPRI at External Event

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October 16 to 20, 2023

Micronutrient Forum: 6th Global Conference

Hybrid Conference: October 16, 2023 – 8:30 AM to October 20, 2023 – 5:00 PM CEST. IFPRI is pleased to participate in this year’s Micronutrient Forum 6th Global Conference, being held at the World Forum in The Hague October 16–20, with a focus on “Nutrition for Resilience (N4R).

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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.

November 21, 2024 | Press Release

Study Finds Bolsa Familia Children Healthier, Doing Better in School

Brasilia—Brazil’s Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program has had a positive effect on the health and education of Brazil’s poor children, according to an evaluation by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Bolsa Familia is implemented by the Ministry of Social Development and the Fight against Hunger (MDS). MDS, the United Nations Development Program […]

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