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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.

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Kinya Kaibung’a

Kinya Kaibung’a is a Research Officer with the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has a keen interest in leveraging machine learning, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies to boost climate resilience and food security in smart agriculture systems.

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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

Moogdho Mahzab

Research Fellow

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Bio

Moogdho Mahzab is a Research Fellow with the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a development economist with research interests in environment, health, and political economy. Prior to joining IFPRI, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Graduate Business School and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Viginia. He also received the U.S. Fulbright Scholarship from Bangladesh to pursue a master’s in Policy Economics at Williams College.

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Publications

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Journal Article

Productivity gains and work conditions in coercive labor markets: Experimental evidence from the Bangladesh brick sector

2026
Miller, Grant; Biswas, Debashish; Mahajan, Aprajit; Babiarz, Kimberly Singer; Brooks, Nina; Brunner, Jessie; Ashraf, Sania; Shane, Jack; Scarabosio, Alvise; Maithel, Sameer
…more Ahmed, Shoeb; Mahzab, Moogdho; Uddin, Mohammad Rofi; Rahman, Mahbubur; Luby, Stephen P.
Details

Productivity gains and work conditions in coercive labor markets: Experimental evidence from the Bangladesh brick sector

Productivity growth in competitive labor markets can improve worker welfare over time through higher wages or better conditions, but it is unclear if productivity gains benefit workers in coercive labor markets (where force or threats shape employment). We examine this issue in the Bangladesh brick sector using a randomized trial that introduced a more efficient production method. Despite large productivity improvements, we find no reduction in (high) rates of labor trafficking or child labor. These findings suggest that in the short-term, productivity growth alone may be insufficient to improve work conditions in coercive settings.

Year published

2026

Authors

Miller, Grant; Biswas, Debashish; Mahajan, Aprajit; Babiarz, Kimberly Singer; Brooks, Nina; Brunner, Jessie; Ashraf, Sania; Shane, Jack; Scarabosio, Alvise; Maithel, Sameer; Ahmed, Shoeb; Mahzab, Moogdho; Uddin, Mohammad Rofi; Rahman, Mahbubur; Luby, Stephen P.

Citation

Miller, Grant; Biswas, Debashish; Mahajan, Aprajit; Babiarz, Kimberly Singer; Brooks, Nina; et al. 2026. Productivity gains and work conditions in coercive labor markets: Experimental evidence from the Bangladesh brick sector. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 123(29): e2528388123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2528388123

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Productivity; Labour Market; Bricks; Economic Sectors; Working Conditions; Compulsory Labour; Child Labour

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2528388123 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Manual

Qualitative research tools to study women’s voice, leadership, and the role of collectives and programs on household and community change

2026Raghunathan, Kalyani; Chauhan, Alka; Mahzab, Moogdho; Simi, Sonjida Mesket; Kyle, Jordan
Details

Qualitative research tools to study women’s voice, leadership, and the role of collectives and programs on household and community change

These guides are designed to support researchers and implementing organizations in conducting rigorous, in-depth qualitative research on women’s voice, agency, and leadership and its impacts on households and communities. This toolkit is intended for social scientists, research teams, and program staff who want a structured, validated approach to understanding how women experience and exercise voice and agency and how collectives, social movements, and programmatic interventions shape those experiences. It is designed to be used when the objective is to understand current conditions, to reconstruct the process of change that produced those conditions, and the consequences on communities and community groups of women’s leadership over time. The toolkit takes a multi-level approach, comprising five instruments that together capture individual, household, collective, and organizational perspectives on women’s leadership. Community- and individual-level instruments capture individual and collective experience from the perspective of male and female group members and non-members, leaders, and household members. An organizational-level instrument captures the programmatic perspective — what conditions preceded program entry, how decisions were made about where to start programming, and how organizations understand their own contribution to change. Together the instruments enable a more complete account of how women’s voice and leadership environments develop than any single data source could provide.

Year published

2026

Authors

Raghunathan, Kalyani; Chauhan, Alka; Mahzab, Moogdho; Simi, Sonjida Mesket; Kyle, Jordan

Citation

Raghunathan, Kalyani; Chauhan, Alka; Mahzab, Moogdho; Simi, Sonjida Mesket; and Kyle, Jordan. 2026. Qualitative research tools to study women’s voice, leadership, and the role of collectives and programs on household and community change. IFPRI Research Guide. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/183721

Keywords

Communities; Households; Programmes; Cooperative Activities; Gender; Women; Women’s Empowerment; Qualitative Analysis

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Manual

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Working Paper

Effects of brick kiln industry on agricultural productivity: A natural experiment in Bangladesh

2025Mahzab, Moogdho; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Mattsson, Martin; Anowar, Md Sadat
Details

Effects of brick kiln industry on agricultural productivity: A natural experiment in Bangladesh

Agriculture remains central to Bangladesh’s economy and food security, yet it is increasingly threatened by the rapid expansion of informal brick manufacturing that extracts fertile topsoil from cropland and generates heavy local pollution. This paper provides national-scale causal evidence on how brick kiln expansion affects vegetation health and agricultural productivity by combining long-run satellite observations with geolocated kiln data. We construct a spatiotemporal panel of unions and municipalities using annual the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer normalized difference vegetation index (MODIS NDVI) from 2002–2024 and a high-resolution inventory of 9,187 brick kilns detected through satellite imagery and machine learning. Using a continuous and staggered difference-in-differences design, we find no evidence of differential pre-trends, but we do find a clear and persistent deterioration in vegetation health following kiln establishment. The magnitude is economically meaningful: a marginal increase in kiln presence is associated with roughly a 1 percent annual decline in local vegetation productivity, with effects that persist and accumulate over time. These results are consistent with long-run soil degradation and chronic environmental exposure around kiln sites, and they imply substantial hidden costs of informal industrial growth in densely cultivated landscapes. The findings highlight the urgency of stronger enforcement of siting rules, of incentives for cleaner production technologies, and of land-use planning that protects high-productivity agricultural zones.

Year published

2025

Authors

Mahzab, Moogdho; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Mattsson, Martin; Anowar, Md Sadat

Citation

Mahzab, Moogdho; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Mattsson, Martin; and Anowar, Md Sadat. 2025. Effects of brick kiln industry on agricultural productivity: A natural experiment in Bangladesh. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2402. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/180697

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Agricultural Productivity; Food Security; Plant Health; Remote Sensing; Drying Kilns

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Events

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Towards Impact at Scale
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

December 2 to 4, 2025

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Towards Impact at Scale

South Asia continues to face an enduring burden of malnutrition in all its forms—undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and a steady increase in overweight and obesity and non-communicable diseases. Over 1 billion people in South Asia cannot afford a healthy diet. While many promising solutions have emerged, translating them into sustained, large-scale impact remains a challenge. This […]

News

December 08, 2025 | In the News

Sellers not relying on middlemen anymore for fish sales: Study (The Daily Star)

IFPRI research presented at the BIDS Annual Conference on Development 2025, highlighting new evidence on aquaculture value chains, agricultural mechanization, and social protection.