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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. 

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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

Mehrab Bakhtiar

Research Fellow

Bio

Mehrab Bakhtiar is a Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. A Bangladeshi development economist, he uses experimental and non-experimental methods to study the impact of interventions related to social protection, nutrition, and agriculture with a special focus on women’s empowerment and intrahousehold decision-making. He has carried out research in Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. As Deputy Chief of Party of the Feed the Future Bangladesh Agricultural Policy Activity, he has helped lead IFPRI’s policy engagements, research outreach, and implementation of national and sub-national surveys in Bangladesh since 2019.

Prior to his work with IFPRI, Bakhtiar worked as a Research Analyst at the Africa Gender Innovation Lab at the World Bank and was selected in the World Bank’s Young Professionals Program in 2019. Before heading to graduate school, he was a Research Coordinator at Innovations for Poverty Action, Bangladesh. He received his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from University of Maryland–College Park, where his doctoral research was recognized by the Dr. and Mrs. Bill V. Lessley Dissertation Excellence Award.

Publications

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Does nutrition-sensitive social protection protection build longer-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

2024Ahmed, Akhter U.; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John; Roy, Shalini
Details

Does nutrition-sensitive social protection protection build longer-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Evidence shows that cash and in-kind transfer programs increase food security while interventions are ongoing, including during or immediately after shocks. But less is known about whether receipt of these programs can have protective effects for household food security against shocks that occur several years after interventions end. We study the effects of a transfer program implemented as a cluster-randomized control trial in rural Bangladesh from 2012-2014 – the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI) – on food security in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We assess TMRI’s impacts at three post-program time points: before the shock (2018), amidst the shock (2021), and after the immediate effects of the shock (2022). We find that TMRI showed protective effects on household food security during and after the pandemic, but program design features “mattered”; positive impacts were only seen in the treatment arm that combined cash transfers with nutrition behavior change communication (Cash+BCC). Other treatment arms – cash only, and food only – showed no significant sustained effects on our household food security measures after the intervention ended, nor did they show protective effects during the pandemic. A plausible mechanism is that investments made by Cash+BCC households in productive assets – specifically livestock – increased their pre-shock resilience capacity.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ahmed, Akhter U.; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John; Roy, Shalini

Citation

Ahmed, Akhter U.; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John; and Roy, Shalini. 2024. Does nutrition-sensitive social protection protection build longer-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2282. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155053

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Covid-19; Resilience; Shock; Social Protection

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making

2024Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Papineni, Sreelakshmi
Details

To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making

We conduct an original lab-in-the-field experiment on the decision–making process of married couples over the allocation of rival and non-rival household goods. The experiment measures individual preferences over allocations and traces the process of deferral, consultation, communication and accommodation by which couples implement these preferences. We find few differences in individual preferences over allocations of goods. However, wives and husbands have strong preferences over process: women prefer to defer decisions to their husbands even when deferral is costly and is not observed by the husband; men rarely defer under any condition. Our study follows a randomized controlled trial that ended a year earlier and gave large cash transfers over eighteen months to half of the women in the study. We estimate the effect of treatment on the demand for agency among women and find that the receipt of cash transfers does not change women’s bargaining process except in a secret condition when the decision to defer is shrouded from her husband. This suggests that the cash transfer to women increases their demand for agency but does not change the intra-household balance of power enough to allow them to express it publicly.

Year published

2024

Authors

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; Papineni, Sreelakshmi

Citation

Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Fafchamps, Marcel; Goldstein, Markus; Leonard, Kenneth L.; and Papineni, Sreelakshmi. 2024. To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2271. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152230

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Bargaining Power; Cash Transfers; Decision Making; Intrahousehold Relations

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Evaluation of a livestock financing project in Bangladesh: Navigating operational, environmental, and behavioral challenges

2023Ambler, Kate; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Brauw, Alan de; Uddin, Mohammad Riad
Details

Evaluation of a livestock financing project in Bangladesh: Navigating operational, environmental, and behavioral challenges

Smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries have limited access to finance, due to the pau city of banks and other financial institutions in rural areas. As a result, banks and other formal financial institutions tend not to know much about farming as a business, and therefore they hesitate to extend credit to farmers. Such reluctance is often attributed to the elevated costs and risks linked with small, geographically dispersed farms, as well as the farmers’ lack of collateral. Microfinance has emerged as a crucial intervention in bridging this gap. However, the fixed and rigid repayment structures of microfinance institutions (MFIs) often clash with the seasonal nature of agricultural production. This mismatch creates financial strain for farmers, who must manage cash flows that are inherently unpredictable due to factors like weather variability and market fluctuations. These challenges underscore the need for more flexible and tailored financial solutions.

Year published

2023

Authors

Ambler, Kate; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Brauw, Alan de; Uddin, Mohammad Riad

Citation

Ambler, Kate; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; de Brauw, Alan; and Uddin, Mohammad Riad. 2023. Evaluation of a livestock financing project in Bangladesh: Navigating operational, environmental, and behavioral challenges. Rethinking Food Markets Initiative Note December 2023. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Smallholders; Finance; Rural Areas; Farming; Mircofinance; Risk

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.137043 Source record

Project

Rethinking Food Markets

Record type

Brief

Events

Into, Through and Beyond USAID Programs: Lessons from the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index
IFPRI at External Event

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March 29, 2023, 9:00 – 10:15 am

Into, Through and Beyond USAID Programs: Lessons from the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

Virtual Event: March 29, 2023 – 9:00 AM- 10:15 AM EDT. This webinar will mark the launch of two briefs, one on the use cases of WEAI in USAID projects worldwide and the other on how WEAI has informed and supported the design of policies and programs in Bangladesh.