Subscribe

Back

Who we are

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

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.

Back

What we do

Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

Research topics

Projects and impact

Food Security Portal

Modeling tools

What’s new

Where we work

Back

Where we work

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

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country and Regional Offices

Research by country and region

Subscribe

experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Moogdho Mahzab

Research Fellow

Follow

Moogdho

at:

@moogdho_mahzab
ORCiD

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.

Personal Website

LinkedIn

Publications

Resource thumbnail

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

Resource thumbnail

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

Resource thumbnail

Manuscript-unpublished

Module for measuring gender norms in agrifood systems: Adapted for focusing on youth and mechanization in Bangladesh

2025Heckert, Jessica; Mahzab, Moogdho; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Simi, Sonjida Mesket
Details

Module for measuring gender norms in agrifood systems: Adapted for focusing on youth and mechanization in Bangladesh

This module is designed for use in agricultural communities in Bangladesh. Specifically, we expect that it will be well suited for evaluating changes in gender norms for gender transformative approaches paired with technical interventions with an agricultural mechanization component. This module is also designed to focus on differences in norms for young women (~ age 1534) and more mature women (~age 35-64) working in agriculture. First, we suggest identifying and using culturally appropriate terminology to refer to women in these two age groups. Additionally, we suggest piloting this survey in a sample with adequate numbers of younger and older women and men. For example, >300 respondents in each of the following categories: women 15-34, men 15-34, women 35-64, and men 35-64. These sample sizes will make it possible to compare perceptions of gender norms regarding younger and older women and consider gender by youth intersectionality. In the modules that follow, the same questions are asked regarding young women and older/mature women. One option to consider that can help avoid respondent fatigue from repeating similar questions would be to randomly assign half of the sample questions about young women and the other half of the sample questions about older/mature women.

Year published

2025

Authors

Heckert, Jessica; Mahzab, Moogdho; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Simi, Sonjida Mesket

Citation

Heckert, Jessica; Mahzab, Moogdho; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; and Simi, Sonjida Mesket. 2025. Module for measuring gender norms in agrifood systems: Adapted for focusing on youth and mechanization in Bangladesh. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/179398

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Gender; Agrifood Systems; Youth; Gender Norms; Mechanization

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Manuscript-unpublished

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.