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With research staff from more than 70 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

Lilia Bliznashka

Lily Bliznashka is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of multi-input nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions and the mechanisms through which they work to improve maternal and child health and nutrition globally. She has worked in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Melissa Hidrobo

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Melissa Hidrobo is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. She is an applied microeconomist working at the intersection of gender, rural livelihoods, poverty reduction, and social protection. Her gender research focuses on how different interventions affect intrahousehold dynamics and how intrahousehold dynamics affect agricultural production. Her recent research involves impact evaluations of nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs, social protection and economic inclusion programs, and edutainment to change gender norms in Mali, Ghana, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Senegal. Melissa holds a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Language: English (fluent), Spanish (fluent), French (proficient)

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Publications

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Journal Article

C’est la vie! Mixed impacts of an edutainment television series in West Africa

2026Dione, Malick; Heckert, Jessica; Hidrobo, Melissa; le Port, Agnes; Peterman, Amber; Seye, Moustapha
Details

C’est la vie! Mixed impacts of an edutainment television series in West Africa

Edutainment is a promising tool for changing behavior at scale, yet little is known about how to maximize impacts. We undertake an experimental evaluation of a popular West African television series, C’est la vie!, delivered through film clubs targeted at adolescent girls and young women in rural Senegal. We examine impacts on violence against women and girls and sexual and reproductive health. Results show C’est la vie! improved knowledge on both domains three months after film clubs ended, as well as violence-related attitudes nine months later, however, had no impact on behaviors. We investigate design components intended to strengthen impacts, generally finding no additional impacts from post-screening discussions, engaging men, and podcasts. Our findings suggest that edutainment is an engaging way to reach viewers on sensitive themes, however more evidence is needed on how to effectively deliver edutainment content for sustained behavior change at scale.

Year published

2026

Authors

Dione, Malick; Heckert, Jessica; Hidrobo, Melissa; le Port, Agnes; Peterman, Amber; Seye, Moustapha

Citation

Dione, Malick; Heckert, Jessica; Hidrobo, Melissa; le Port, Agnes; Peterman, Amber; and Seye, Moustapha. 2026. C’est la vie! Mixed impacts of an edutainment television series in West Africa. Journal of Development Economics 182(June 2026): 103748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103748

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Education; Television; Mass Media; Impact Assessment; Social Impact Assessment; Randomized Controlled Trials; Violence; Health; Gender-based Violence; Reproductive Health; Adolescents

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103748 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Journal Article

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Opinion Piece

C’est la Vie! How a popular West African edutainment series changed minds, but not behaviours

2026Dione, Malick; Heckert, Jessica; Hidrobo, Melissa; Le Port, Agnès; Peterman, Amber; Seye, Moustapha
Details

C’est la Vie! How a popular West African edutainment series changed minds, but not behaviours

A West African TV series in Senegal led to short- and medium-term gains in knowledge and attitudes around violence against women and sexual and reproductive health, though impacts on behaviours were limited, and a podcast version extending content during COVID-19 was ineffective.

Year published

2026

Authors

Dione, Malick; Heckert, Jessica; Hidrobo, Melissa; Le Port, Agnès; Peterman, Amber; Seye, Moustapha

Citation

Dione, Malick; Heckert, Jessica; Hidrobo, Melissa; Le Port, Agnès; Peterman, Amber; and Seye, Moustapha. 2026. C’est la Vie! How a popular West African edutainment series changed minds, but not behaviours. VoxDev. First published online on 12 May 2026. https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/cest-la-vie-how-popular-west-african-edutainment-series

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Gender; Education; Television; Social Impact Assessment; Randomized Controlled Trials; Gender-based Violence; Health

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Opinion Piece

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Leveraging social protection to strengthen women’s and girls’ climate-resilience in agrifood systems

2026Hidrobo, Melissa; Mueller, Valerie; Roy, Shalini; Bryan, Elizabeth; Nesbitt-Ahmed, Zahrah; Läderach, Peter
Details

Leveraging social protection to strengthen women’s and girls’ climate-resilience in agrifood systems

Women and girls (WGs) have important roles in making agrifood systems more climate resilient. However, systemic inequalities in access to resources, technologies, information, services, and networks, alongside limited agency and restrictive gender norms, reduce their capacity to adapt to and mitigate climate change. WGs’ constraints on adaptation bear implications on the wellbeing of WGs, their households, and the sustainability of agrifood systems. With growing recognition that social protection helps promote WGs’ resilience in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) at large scale, stakeholders are interested in developing social protection programs that are responsive to both climate change and gender inequality. However, little is known about effective approaches. We develop a conceptual framework on how social assistance – the most prevalent type of social protection programming in many LMICs – affects WGs’ coping, adaptive, and mitigative responses to climate hazards. We reflect on the emerging evidence and propose recommendations on program design features that may more effectively promote WGs’ climate resilience in agrifood systems. We additionally highlight important directions for future research to guide practice.

Year published

2026

Authors

Hidrobo, Melissa; Mueller, Valerie; Roy, Shalini; Bryan, Elizabeth; Nesbitt-Ahmed, Zahrah; Läderach, Peter

Citation

Hidrobo, Melissa; Mueller, Valerie; Roy, Shalini; Bryan, Elizabeth; Nesbitt-Ahmed, Zahrah; and Läderach, Peter. 2026. Leveraging social protection to strengthen women’s and girls’ climate-resilience in agrifood systems. Food Policy 140(May 2026): 103066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2026.103066

Keywords

Social Protection; Gender; Climate Resilience; Agrifood Systems; Gender Equality; Developing Countries

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2026.103066 Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Can cash and therapy work in conflict settings? Evidence from Ethiopia
Research Post
 | 
May 27, 2026

Can cash and therapy work in conflict settings? Evidence from Ethiopia

By Melissa Hidrobo, Harold Alderman, Negussie Deyessa, Daniel Gilligan, Parthu Kalva, Jessica Leight, Michael Mulford, and Heleene Tambet

Confronting the vicious cycle of poverty and mental health problems.

Can simpler, cheaper poverty graduation programs still deliver? Evidence from Ethiopia
Research Post
 | 
May 08, 2026

Can simpler, cheaper poverty graduation programs still deliver? Evidence from Ethiopia

By Jessica Leight, Daniel Gilligan, Melissa Hidrobo, Harold Alderman, and Michael Mulford

A “light touch” model delivers mixed results.

‘Dirty laundry is washed at home’: Increasing disclosure of violence against women and girls through self-administered surveys
Research Post
 | 
August 15, 2023

‘Dirty laundry is washed at home’: Increasing disclosure of violence against women and girls through self-administered surveys

By Amber Peterman, Melissa Hidrobo, and Malick Dione

Potential limits of in-person interviews.

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Events

Gender-differentiated adaptation and social protection: Applications and future directions for analysis and policy
IFPRI at External Event

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June 16, 2026, 10:00 – 12:30 pm

Gender-differentiated adaptation and social protection: Applications and future directions for analysis and policy

This workshop will explore methods for measuring climate shocks, from rainfall variability to floods and heatwaves, followed by applications in two contexts (Mali and Bangladesh) that focus on how weather shocks affect poor rural households and the role of social protection in supporting men’s and women’s adaptive responses. It will open with a brief overview […]

Financing Social Protection in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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April 29, 2026, 9:00 – 10:30 am

Financing Social Protection in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Social protection and safety net programs have expanded significantly across many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the last two decades. Despite this progress, the expansion and coverage of these programs remain uneven, leaving nearly 2 billion people in LMICs without access to social protection. Innovative financing mechanisms and domestic funding have helped some LMICs […]

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

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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 […]

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News

October 22, 2019 | In the News

Cash transfers and intimate partner violence (Agrilinks)

Agrilinks reported on an IFPRI study. The authors identify three policy-relevant knowledge gaps related to the potential of transfer programs to reduce intimate partner violence, drawing on case studies from Bangladesh, Ecuador, and Mali.

February 08, 2019 | In the News

Opinion: Measuring the unintended benefits of a development program (Devex)

Devex published an op-ed by Akhter Ahmed, Melissa Hidrobo, and Shalini Roy about the additional impact development programs may have on wellbeing.  Evaluating the Transfer Modality Research initiative in Bangladesh, research showed that cash transfers and behavior change communications can reduce intimate partner violence and lead to improved nutrition knowledge. 

November 12, 2018 | In the News

How a $50-a-year nutrition program cut domestic violence in Bangladesh (Vox)

Vox published a news editorial about the ability of cash transfer initiatives to reduce rates of intimate partner violence. The article included the recent research of IFPRI research fellows Shalini Roy, Melissa Hidrobo, and Akhter Ahmed because their findings are different from past research, where they examine intimate partner violence using cash transfer programs and […]

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