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Who we are

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

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. She has extensive transdisciplinary research experience in using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her work focuses on two broad (and sometimes interrelated) areas: how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, and the role of gender in development processes. 

Where we work

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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

Heleene Tambet

Senior Research Analyst

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Bio

Heleene Tambet is a Senior Research Analyst in the Poverty, Gender and Inclusion Unit. She is an economist working on a diverse set of data-driven questions around the sustainability of food systems. At IFPRI, she has been supporting several large multisectoral evaluations, including Strengthen PSNP4 Institutions and Resilience in Ethiopia and mNutrition in Ghana and Tanzania. Her primary interests are agricultural practices and management of farming-related natural resources in the context of climate change. During her graduate studies, Heleene worked on projects that included evaluating economic and environmental impacts of an organic certification scheme and studying adoption of soil and water conservation practices after extreme weather events. She has an MS in International and Development Economics from the University of San Francisco.

Google Scholar Citations

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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Brief

PSNP and sustainable land management in Ethiopia: A formative qualitative investigation

2024Tefera, Mulugeta; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Leight, Jessica; Tambet, Heleene
Details

PSNP and sustainable land management in Ethiopia: A formative qualitative investigation

The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) is Ethiopia’s national safety net program, launched in 2005 and currently in its fifth phase. The objective of the PSNP is to protect households’ food consumption and assets, reduce their vulnerability to shocks, and address underlying causes of extreme poverty (MoA FSCD 2020). Households who have an adult available to work are required to take part in public works that focus on building infrastructure and improving the natural resource base (MoA FSCD 2020). As such, these projects are partially designed to contribute to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, there is limited evidence about how sustainable land management (SLM) activities are conducted under the PSNP on both publicly and privately operated lands, and how the uptake of these activities and their benefits differ by gender.

Year published

2024

Authors

Tefera, Mulugeta; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Leight, Jessica; Tambet, Heleene

Citation

Tefera, Mulugeta; Gilligan, Daniel; Leight, Jessica; and Tambet, Heleene. 2024. PSNP and sustainable land management in Ethiopia: A formative qualitative investigation. SPIR Learning Brief 8. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152385

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Households; Food Consumption; Poverty; Shock; Vulnerability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Brief

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Journal Article

Aspiring to more? New evidence on the effect of light-touch aspirations interventions in rural Ethiopia

2024Leight, Jessica; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum; Tambet, Heleene
Details

Aspiring to more? New evidence on the effect of light-touch aspirations interventions in rural Ethiopia

A growing literature in economics has analysed the effects of psychological interventions designed to boost individual aspirations as a strategy to increase households’ propensity to make long-term investments and thus reduce poverty. This paper reports on a randomised controlled trial evaluating a short video-based intervention designed to increase aspirations of adults in poor rural Ethiopian households who are beneficiaries of the Productive Safety Net Program, the main government safety net program in Ethiopia. Evidence from a sample of 5,258 adults from 3,220 households is consistent with the hypothesis that there are no significant effects of the intervention on self-reported aspirations for the household, educational investment in children, or savings nine months post-treatment. This suggests that the effect of light-touch aspirations treatments for extremely poor adults may be limited in this context.

Year published

2024

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum; Tambet, Heleene

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Mulford, Michael; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum; and Tambet, Heleene. Aspiring to more? New evidence on the effect of light-touch aspirations interventions in rural Ethiopia. Journal of Development Effectiveness. Article in press. First published online on March 31, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1080/19439342.2024.2334214

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Economic Aspects; Psychology; Investment; Poverty; Social Safety Nets

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1080/19439342.2024.2334214 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Journal Article

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.

Events

SPIR II Learning Event
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

May 16 to 17, 2023

SPIR II Learning Event

May 16 and 17, 2023 (9:00am – 5:00pm Addis Ababa): The Strengthen PSNP5 Institutions and Resilience (SPIR II) Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) in Ethiopia is a five-year project (2021-2026) that supports implementation of the fifth phase of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP5) in Amhara and Oromia regions and provides additional graduation model programming through complementary gender-sensitive livelihood, nutrition, and climate resilience activities to strengthen the program and expand its impacts.