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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

Jessica Leight

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Jessica Leight is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. Her research focuses on questions linked to social protection, multifaceted livelihoods interventions, agriculture, gender, health, and structural transformation. She conducts fieldwork in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Somalia, and Mozambique.

Before joining IFPRI, Jessica was an assistant professor of economics at American University and at Williams College. Jessica received a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MPhil in economics from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and a BA from Yale University.

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Publications

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

The effects of cash and group therapy in the context of conflict: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Ethiopia

2026Hidrobo, Melissa; Alderman, Harold; Deyessa, Negussie; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Kalva, Parthu; Leight, Jessica; Mulford, Michael; Tambet, Heleene
Details

The effects of cash and group therapy in the context of conflict: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Ethiopia

The prevalence of depression remains high in low-income contexts, particularly those affected by conflict. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted in rural Ethiopia assessing the effects of a psychological (group therapy) intervention delivered by non-specialist health staff, as well as a large one-time cash transfer delivered post-therapy. The trial includes three arms comparing group therapy, cash, and both jointly to a status quo control within a sample of individuals reporting some depressive symptoms or functional impairment at baseline. The study occurred between 2022 and 2024, during a period of active armed conflict. Findings show that sixteen months post-baseline, there are no persistent positive effects of group therapy alone; cash alone improves time use and economic outcomes. Group therapy and cash jointly improve psychosocial skills, time use, and economic outcomes, and in areas not affected by conflict, the joint intervention also improves mental health.

Year published

2026

Authors

Hidrobo, Melissa; Alderman, Harold; Deyessa, Negussie; Gilligan, Daniel O.; Kalva, Parthu; Leight, Jessica; Mulford, Michael; Tambet, Heleene

Citation

Hidrobo, Melissa; Alderman, Harold; Deyessa, Negussie; Gilligan, Daniel O.; et al. 2026. The effects of cash and group therapy in the context of conflict: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in Ethiopia. Journal of Development Economics 181(April 2026): 103724. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103724

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Poverty; Armed Conflicts; Cash Transfers; Social Protection; Group Approaches; Mental Health; Project Evaluation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103724 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Brief

Community-driven development, governance, and collective action: Overview of the evidence

2026Leight, Jessica; Clark, Anne Angsten; Reynolds, Katherine
Details

Community-driven development, governance, and collective action: Overview of the evidence

As foreign aid declines, which interventions should we prioritize? Advocates of community-driven development (CDD) have long argued that we should ask this question of the communities and people whom aid is meant to serve. CDD provides village-level grants and facilitation that support communities in choosing and implementing the projects they consider local priorities, including basic health and education services, local infrastructure, income-generating activities, or other community priorities. In recent years, a growing body of evidence has begun to document and assess the effects of this approach. This brief and a companion brief1 synthesize findings from a range of rigorous evaluations to describe what we know about the multidimensional impacts of CDD in low- and middle-income contexts and highlight gaps that should be addressed in future research. Here, we focus on the effects of CDD on governance and collective action.

Year published

2026

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Clark, Anne Angsten; Reynolds, Katherine

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Clark, Anne Angsten; and Reynolds, Katherine. 2026. Community-driven development, governance, and collective action: Overview of the evidence. IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/182189

Keywords

Development Aid; Community Development; Governance; Social Capital; Women’s Participation; Collective Action

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Community-driven development, infrastructure, and public services: Overview of the evidence

2026Leight, Jessica; Clark, Anne Angsten; Reynolds, Katherine
Details

Community-driven development, infrastructure, and public services: Overview of the evidence

Community-driven development (CDD) reliably delivers locally prioritized public infrastructure and services, often at a lower cost and with less leakage than traditional government-managed projects, and it has proven particularly effective in challenging contexts affected by institutional fragility, conflict, and violence. CDD effectively supports communities in prioritizing projects, producing a wide range of positive local outcomes. Yet, the diversity of choices makes generalizing the efficacy of CDD across settings difficult, highlighting the need for more research and better approaches to generating evidence and identifying impact. Emerging evidence suggests that infrastructure built by communities through CDD programs often endures longer than development projects that employ more traditional “top-down” approaches, with positive effects persisting for a decade or more.

Year published

2026

Authors

Leight, Jessica; Clark, Anne Angsten; Reynolds, Katherine

Citation

Leight, Jessica; Clark, Anne Angsten; and Reynolds, Katherine. 2026. Community-driven development, infrastructure, and public services: Overview of the evidence. IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/182190

Keywords

Development Aid; Community Development; Infrastructure; Public Services

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Blogs

Graduation from poverty in a changing and fragile world
Research Post
 | 
January 13, 2026

Graduation from poverty in a changing and fragile world

By Jeeyon Kim and Jessica Leight

Emerging frontiers for research and learning.

Graduation from poverty: Can a big push program help conflict-affected households? Evidence from Somalia
Research Post
 | 
December 17, 2024

Graduation from poverty: Can a big push program help conflict-affected households? Evidence from Somalia

By Kalle Hirvonen, Naureen Karachiwalla, Jessica Leight, and Deboleena Rakshit

Moving from assistance to self-sufficiency.

Do ultra-poor graduation programs build resilience against droughts? Evidence from rural Ethiopia
Research Post
 | 
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.

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Events

Advancing Poverty Graduation in Fragile Contexts: A New Agenda for Research and Policy
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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January 21, 2026, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Advancing Poverty Graduation in Fragile Contexts: A New Agenda for Research and Policy

Multifaceted livelihoods interventions that target households in extreme poverty are extremely effective in reducing extreme poverty, with consistent gains in income, consumption, savings, and psychosocial well-being. These interventions, often called graduation models, have been widely evaluated, but most evidence comes from stable rural settings. In fragile and conflict-affected environments where poverty is increasingly concentrated, household-level […]

From Relief to Resilience in Somalia: Harnessing Research to Inform Social Protection Policy and Practice
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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June 16, 2025, 3:30 – 5:00 pm

From Relief to Resilience in Somalia: Harnessing Research to Inform Social Protection Policy and Practice

Policymakers and program implementers in Somalia are increasingly recognizing the importance of complementing short-term support in the form of cash or in-kind transfers with interventions targeting longer-term development goals and poverty exit, a goal that cuts across both more traditional social protection systems and programming targeting internally displaced people. This webinar will bring together representatives […]

Generative AI for Food Systems: A Skills Workshop for Researchers
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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June 5, 2025, 9:30 – 10:30 am

Generative AI for Food Systems: A Skills Workshop for Researchers

This opening webinar launches IFPRI’s new series, AI for Food Systems Research. The series explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is being integrated into food, agriculture, and development research, with a focus on building the skills and critical understanding needed to use these tools responsibly. As outlined in the recent blog post, AI—and more recently, the expanding […]

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