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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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IFPRI currently has more than 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Deboleena Rakshit

Research Analyst

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ORCiD
Deboleena Rakshit

Bio

Deboleena Rakshit is a Research Analyst in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. She works on rigorous evaluation of the gendered impacts of social protection programs on resilience, health, and general well-being, with a regional focus on South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining IFPRI, she worked with Equimundo (formerly Promundo-US) in Washington, DC, as a Quantitative Researcher, and with Quest Alliance in Bangalore as a Program Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. She holds a master’s degree in International Development, with a focus on Development Economics, from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Jadavpur University.

Languages spoken: English, Bengali, Hindi, French

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Publications

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Brief

Evolution of consumption and livelihood impacts from cash and food transfer programs: Eight-year post-program experimental evidence from Bangladesh

2025Ahmed, Akhter; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hidrobo, Melissa; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena; Roy, Shalini
Details

Evolution of consumption and livelihood impacts from cash and food transfer programs: Eight-year post-program experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Findings from this study will provide greater insight as to how and why transfer programs have mixed post-intervention effects across different contexts, and how gender and livelihood opportunities may influence these trajectories. These insights will help inform the future design of transfer programs that aim to support sustainable poverty reduction and gender-equitable livelihoods, including to guide modifications tailored to the local context.

Year published

2025

Authors

Ahmed, Akhter; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hidrobo, Melissa; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena; Roy, Shalini

Citation

Ahmed, Akhter; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hidrobo, Melissa; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena; and Roy, Shalini. 2025. Evolution of consumption and livelihood impacts from cash and food transfer programs: Eight-year post-program experimental evidence from Bangladesh. IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/179365

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Social Protection; Cash Transfers; Food Security; Evaluation; Consumption; Livelihoods; Food Assistance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Working Paper

Are poor people conditionally cooperative? Contrasting evidence from a field-adapted contributions game

2025Allen IV, James; Karachiwalla, Naureen; Rakshit, Deboleena
Details

Are poor people conditionally cooperative? Contrasting evidence from a field-adapted contributions game

We study conditional cooperation using a field-adapted conditional contributions game in rural Mozambique, eliciting community members’ willingness to contribute to a new public program conditional on how many others contribute. While past studies suggest most people are conditional cooperators (contributing more as others do), most of our sample (57%) are undefined by standard classifications. Instead, our sample’s most common types are largely absent from the literature: counter conditional cooperators (contributing less as others do) and v-shaped cooperators, both for monetary donations (30% and 19%) and volunteering (35% and 12%). Our findings motivate future research in both non-laboratory and low-income settings.

Year published

2025

Authors

Allen IV, James; Karachiwalla, Naureen; Rakshit, Deboleena

Citation

Allen IV, James; Karachiwalla, Naureen; and Rakshit, Deboleena. 2025. Are poor people conditionally cooperative? Contrasting evidence from a field-adapted contributions game. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2364. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/176850

Country/Region

Mozambique

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Southern Africa; Cooperation; Low Income Groups; Poverty; School Feeding

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Displacement and development: Evidence from a graduation program for Somalia’s ultra-poor

2025Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Karachiwalla, Naureen; Rakshit, Deboleena
Details

Displacement and development: Evidence from a graduation program for Somalia’s ultra-poor

While the population of internally displaced people around the world continues to grow, evidence around strategies to sustainably enhance livelihoods among IDPs remains extremely limited. We present findings from a randomized trial of an ultra-poor graduation program targeting IDPs in urban Baidoa, Somalia; the intervention pro-vided cash transfers, an asset transfer or technical training program, and facilitated savings groups. Our findings suggest that two years following program launch, the intervention has led to significant increases in consumption, assets, and savings; however, these effects seem to be driven almost exclusively by increased livestock production. An exploration of heterogeneous effect using generalized random forest methods further suggests that the positive effects of the treatment are dramatically larger for smaller households characterized by lower dependency ratios.

Year published

2025

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Karachiwalla, Naureen; Rakshit, Deboleena

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Hirvonen, Kalle; Karachiwalla, Naureen; and Rakshit, Deboleena. 2025. Displacement and development: Evidence from a graduation program for Somalia’s ultra-poor. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2356. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/176389

Country/Region

Somalia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Development; Internally Displaced Persons; Livelihoods; Livestock

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Events

Building pathways out of poverty: Midline findings from a randomized controlled trial
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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July 31, 2024, 9:00 – 10:00 am

Building pathways out of poverty: Midline findings from a randomized controlled trial

This webinar will provide evidence around the effects of the Ultra Poor Graduation program implemented in Baidoa, Somalia by World Vision and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). The project seeks to enable ultra-poor internally displaced households to graduate from extreme poverty and begin an upward trajectory […]