Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL)

Nelsy is a Research Uptake Analyst in the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she serves as the focal point for the Agriculture, Adolescent Girls & Youth Employment, Social Norms & GBV and Property Rights thematics. Before joining AGIL, she worked with the Violence Against Women survey team of the Women, Business and the Law (WBL) project where her research focused on analyzing the existence and significance of domestic violence, sexual harassment as well as child marriage legislation in the context of developing economies. Prior to WBL, she worked as a Project Associate at Management Systems International, where she managed and coordinated USAID projects in Mali and the DRC. She also supported the UNESCO Senegal office where she developed Gender Equity Capacity Statements summarizing causes of gender disparities in SMT classes. Nelsy holds a M.A. in International Economic Policy with a focus on Development Economics from the George Washington University and a B.A. in International Relations/Pre-Law from Queens University of Charlotte. She is a native French speaker.”

Khadijat Busola Amolegbe is an Economist (ETC) with the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), where she co-leads the Lab’s policy engagement and research uptake efforts aimed at promoting women's economic empowerment in Nigeria. Her role includes conducting impact evaluations with a focus on agriculture, land, youth employment, and social protection, specifically addressing gender inequalities. Previously, and away on extended leave, Khadijat was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. She also served as the Principal Investigator for the Rural Digital Literacy project, funded by USAID under the Feed the Future Market Risk and Resilience Innovation Lab's Advancing Local Leadership, Innovation, and Networks (ALL-IN) program at the University of California, Davis. Khadijat earned her Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria.

Clémence Pougué Biyong is a Research Analyst at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (AGIL). Her areas of expertise include conducting impact evaluations on gender-based violence prevention, labor market access, childcare, and mental health programs. She has also been leading the review of evidence for the Adolescent Girl report published by AGIL. She completed her PhD in Economics from University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2023. Before joining the World Bank, Clémence contributed to the Africa’s Development Dynamics reports at the OECD (2018 and 2022) and worked as research assistant at the University of Oxford’s Mind and Behaviour Research Group (2021).

Claire Boxho is a Research Analyst at the Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) of the World Bank. She joined the GIL in 2016 as a field coordinator based in Mozambique and in 2019 joined the team based in Washington, DC. She has extensive experience with household and agricultural data, field data collection and impact evaluation methodology. She works on francophone, anglophone and lusophone countries on topics related to agriculture, land rights, gender-based violence, social norms and adolescent girls. She holds a master’s degree from Paris School of Economics and bachelor’s degrees from Sciences Po and Sorbonne University.

Andrew Brudevold-Newman is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where he leads the Lab’s cross-cutting agenda on gender and digital. His current research focuses on identifying and addressing gender-based constraints to economic activity in Sub-Saharan Africa, with studies focusing on the school-to-work transition, agricultural land rights, gender norms, and social protection. He holds an PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.

Niklas Buehren is a Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) where he coordinates a portfolio of impact evaluations across various sectors and acts as the focal point for the Ethiopia country lab. His work and research interest primarily focuses on technology adoption in agriculture, land tenure, entrepreneurship, microfinance and adolescent development. Before joining the World Bank, Niklas worked in the research unit of a NGO in Uganda, Tanzania and Southern Sudan. He received his master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University College London.

Luz Carazo is a Research Analyst at the Africa Gender Innovation Lab (AGIL) of the World Bank, focusing on impact evaluations of programs empowering adolescent girls and women in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a current emphasis on youth employment and socio-emotional skills training in Niger, DRC, and Burkina Faso. Prior to joining AGIL, she served as a research associate in the LEAP team at Bocconi University, collaborating with Professors Eliana La Ferrara and Selim Gulesci. She also contributed as a consultant within the Poverty Global Practice at the World Bank, concentrating on diverse regions including Latin America, South and Central Asia, and Europe. Luz has additionally worked with esteemed development institutions such as the as the Interamerican Development Bank (IADB) and Latin American Development Bank (CAF). She holds a master’s degree in economics from Universidad de San Andrés (Argentina). Some of her main areas of interest are inequality and poverty topics, labor markets, women empowerment, social norms and GBV.

Amy Geist is an analyst with the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. She joined the World Bank in 2018 and since then has been working to monitor a portfolio of impact evaluations focused on identifying scalable solutions for women’s economic empowerment, and using their findings, bridge the gap between research and policy. She holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies and bachelor’s degrees from Penn State University in International Politics and French.

Emilia is an economist working in the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she leads gender analytics and work in impact evaluations aimed at reducing gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. She informs the World Bank's core analytics by leading country-specific diagnostics that assess the impact of programs and policies aimed at closing gender gaps in economic growth. Her work focuses on impact evaluations in the areas of private sector development, entrepreneurship, and access to finance. In addition to her work in Sub-Saharan Africa, Emilia has contributed to the World Bank’s Poverty Unit for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Office of the Chief Economist for Europe and Central Asia (ECA). She holds a Master’s degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Sarah Deschênes is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. She currently works on impact evaluations of adolescent girls and women empowerment programs in Sub-Saharan Africa to inform the design and implementation of effective programs and policies to reduce gender inequality. Before joining the World Bank, Sarah was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University. Sarah received her PhD in Economics from the Paris School of Economics.

Aletheia Donald is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she leads the team’s research agenda on agriculture and on measurement. Her research spans the study of poverty, social norms, labor and methodological work on survey data collection.  She is currently working on studies on the effects of marriage, redistributive norms, mechanization, gender bias, childcare, women's land rights and intra-household cooperation in sub-Saharan Africa and several countries in Asia. Before joining the World Bank, Aletheia was a Research Fellow at Harvard's Evidence for Policy Design. Born in Italy, Aletheia holds an MA in Economics from Yale University and a PhD in Economics from Sapienza University.  She is also a Research Affiliate at IZA and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development.

Menaal Ebrahim is an ET Analyst in the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab (AFR GIL), where she supports several impact evaluations. Her work currently focuses on Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia covering agriculture, entrepreneurship, and gender-based violence. Prior to joining GIL, she worked at the Environment unit where she wrote extensive technical reports on land degradation in the MENA region, and at the Poverty unit (Africa region) where she managed several high frequency and IDP surveys and wrote analytical reports. Menaal holds a master’s in environmental management from Yale University, with a focus on Environmental Economics.

Yemi is an Analyst at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she specializes in piloting innovative training and financial services tailored to support women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia thought the Innovations in Financing Women Enterprises (IFWE) initiative. Prior to joining the bank, she has worked at an NGO called CARE International in Ethiopia as a Project Officer where she worked on the Graduation with Resilience for Sustainable Development (GRAD) project. Yemsrach holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a master’s degree in Rural Development.

Ayodele Fashogbon is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab where he leads research on innovative and scalable solutions to boost women’s agricultural productivity, earnings from enterprenuership and livelihoods, employment of youth and women’s economic empowerment. His current interests include using rigorous impact evaluations to figure out interventions that work to promote women’s economic empowerment and using a personal trainer approach to influence policies in Nigeria. Ayodele leads the Nigeria Gender Innovation Lab’s engegament strategy on the use of evidence to drive the inclusion of women’s economic empowerment in policies and programming. He previously worked as a consultant with the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice, the Agriculture and Food GP, the Poverty GP, and Development Impact (DIME) team at the World Bank. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare, South Africa.

Sophia Friedson-Ridenour is a Social Scientist at the World Bank’s Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab. Her research focuses on gendered constraints to economic and social empowerment for vulnerable and marginalized youth and women. Her current research includes studies on intrahousehold dynamics, childcare, school-related gender-based violence, climate change adaptation, and entrepreneurship and employment. Prior to joining the World Bank, Sophia was Affiliate Faculty at Regis University, teaching in the Master of Development Practice program, and owner of Development Praxis Consulting. Sophia received her PhD in International and Comparative Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her Master’s degree in International Affairs from City College at the City University of New York.

Birce is currently an Analyst at the Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she is responsible for the research uptake agenda focusing on private sector development and social protection. Her work aims to incorporate evidence-based strategies that reduce gender gaps into new project designs and policy-making processes. Prior to this role, she was with the World Bank's Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi), addressing financial and non-financial barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. She has over seven years’ experience at international organizations (World Bank and the UN) and working with governments and the private sector. She coordinated implementation of projects with multinational teams, including public and private sector leaders; developed funding proposals; launched new publications; conducted high-level policy reform dialogues, events, and training sessions; and developed global client outreach and media campaigns.

Birce holds a master’s degree in Global Affairs from Yale University, where she was awarded a full scholarship by the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. She received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science & International Relations and Business Administration from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Matilde Grácio is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. She currently works on impact evaluations of agriculture programs, entrepreneurship programs, as well as adolescent girls and women empowerment programs in Sub Saharan Africa. Before joining the GIL she had extensive experience conducting surveys and field work in Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, for BELAB and NOVAFRICA. With these institutions, she has worked on projects dealing with the private sector, agricultural development, and financial inclusion. Matilde received her PhD in Economics, specialized in Development Economics and Policy Evaluation, from the Nova School of Business and Economics. Her research has been published in the Journal of Development Economics.

Adiam Hagos Hailemicheal is an Economist working with the Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab at the World Bank Group. Adiam has a decade and a half of experience in development research, primarily focusing on women's economic empowerment and childhood development in Sub-Saharan Africa. She works on various research projects on entrepreneurship, wage employment, childcare, mental health, land tenure, and adolescent girls’ development. Adiam also has extensive policy dialogue experience informing the design of policies with empirical evidence on women's economic empowerment. Adiam is a focal person for the Gender Innovation Policy Initiative for Ethiopia – one of GIL’s country-level labs. In addition to her research work program, Adiam leads GIPIE’s policy engagement activities. Before joining the World Bank, Adiam worked for Policy Research Institute, a semi-autonomous think tank in Ethiopia, and the Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions. Adiam holds a Master's degree in economics and development studies from the University of Antwerp and a Master's degree in economics from Addis Ababa University.

Brittany Hill is an Operations Officer who mainly focuses on overall Africa Gender Innovation Lab strategy and coordination, budget forecasting and monitoring of unit wide finances, HR planning, and procurement. Before joining the World Bank, Brittany worked the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where she supported academic research at the Center for International Development. She holds an MA in International Policy Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Tewodros Tassew Kebede is a financial sector specialist at the World Bank who is passionate about financial services, technology, and innovation. He has extensive experience in the private, public, and development sectors. At the World Bank, Tewodros has worked on various programs, including social protection programs and safety nets, Harnessing Innovation for Financial Inclusion (HiFi), CGAP's Women in Rural Agriculture Livelihoods, Women entrepreneurship development program (WEDP), and Innovations in Financing Women Entrepreneurs. Before joining the Bank, Tewodros worked as a consultant in the fields of digital financial services, financial inclusion, and the digital economy. He led the establishment of FSD Ethiopia, a financial sector development agency. He also oversaw the adoption of digital payments in safety net programs and served as an operations director at a financial technology company, where he managed mobile money services.

Tigist Ketema is an Analyst at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she currently works on impact evaluations of agriculture and land tenure programs; digital payment services and private sector development programs; as well social norms and women empowerment programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work aims to address gender inequality by providing evidence-based policy recommendations to policy makers and program implementers. Before joining the World Bank, Tigist was an Assistant Lecturer at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia where she offered economics courses and advised undergraduate students. Tigist received her MA in Comparative Local Development from University of Trento, Italy, and M.Sc. in Economics from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Daniel Kirkwood is a Senior Gender Specialist with the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. His work currently focuses on supporting the integration of gender evidence into Country Engagement Products, core diagnostics, and other products; providing regional gender coordination, such as through the Regional Gender Action Plans; and providing corporate support on gender to the regional Front Offices and other internal clients. Prior to joining the GIL, Daniel worked as an Aid Coordination Consultant for UNDP, as a Gender Consultant for the African Development Bank, and as a Junior Professional Associate for the World Bank’s Gender Group. He has master’s degrees in Development Studies and in Business Analytics and Consulting from the London School of Economics and the University of Warwick.

Tricia Koroknay-Palicz is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. She works on interventions and studies focused on increasing productivity and incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa; gender and intra-household dynamics; and financial inclusion. She previously worked at Innovations for Poverty Action, and MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab. She holds a Master’s degree from Princeton University.

Estelle Koussoubé is a Senior Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she leads the Lab research agenda on youth employment and adolescent girls’ empowerment. She currently works on impact evaluations of adolescent girls and women empowerment programs, youth employment programs, as well as agriculture and gender-based violence prevention programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, to inform the design and implementation of effective programs and policies to reduce gender inequality. Before joining the World Bank, Estelle was a Junior Research Follow at UMR DIAL (French Research Institute for Development and Paris-Dauphine University) where she worked on the NOPOOR Project. Estelle received her PhD in Economics from Paris-Dauphine University

Shanthi Manian is a development economist specializing in gender and development. Her current research focuses primarily on gender gaps in access to finance and firm outcomes, gender discrimination in labor and credit markets, and household decision-making in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her previous work spans topic in global health, technology adoption, and cognitive constraints among the poor. She has successful collaborations spanning national government agencies, local universities, and community-based organizations, and her work has been funded by USAID, the International Growth Centre, and the Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley, among others. Prior to joining Africa GIL, she was an Assistant Professor at Washington State University, where she is currently on leave. She received her PhD from UC San Diego in 2017.

Hiwot M. Mesfin is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab where she works on impact evaluations of programs that aim to enhance women’s empowerment. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked as a Social and Economic Policy Researcher at the UNICEF Office of Research and Foresight where she conducted several impact evaluations focusing on the effectiveness of cash transfers on various adolescent and household-level outcomes and the extent to which cash transfers mitigate the adverse effects of climate and conflict shocks. She holds a PhD from the School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

Joao Montalvao is a Senior Economist and Thematic Leader at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. His work focuses on testing policy interventions to overcome barriers to women's economic empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa and collaborating with teams to design better policy interventions based on research findings. Joao conducts research on a variety of topics including property rights, skills development, agriculture, entrepreneurship, social norms, and gender-based violence. Joao holds a PhD in economics from University College London.

Uloma Ogba is an Operations Analyst at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she advances research and innovation in private sector development. Currently, she supports the Innovations in Financing Women Entrepreneurs (IFWE) initiative, an innovation fund that pilots, scales, and evaluates new approaches to empowering women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia. Previously, Uloma served as the Lead Gender Specialist for the UN Capital Development Fund’s Migration and Remittances Program, working to improve remittance policies and drive financial innovation, particularly for migrant women and their families. She holds two master’s degrees in Medical Informatics from the University of Amsterdam and Medical Physics from Purdue University.

Michael O’Sullivan is a Senior Economist and Head of the World Bank's Africa Gender Innovation Lab, an action-oriented research lab that aims to identify what works to promote gender equality in Africa and use these insights to shape policy. The Lab’s evidence has informed $11.6 billion in development investments across 56 countries globally. Over the past fifteen years, Michael has led research to identify key barriers to women’s economic empowerment in Africa and test innovative solutions to overcome these barriers. He previously worked on USAID-funded projects and served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Sreelakshmi Papineni (Sree) is an Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, within the Africa Chief Economist Office. She leads several impact evaluation research studies in the areas of entrepreneurship, adolescent girls, agriculture, and social norms. She also leads a thematic work program on occupational sex segregation. Her work informs the design and implementation of programs and policies to reduce gender inequality and promote women’s economic empowerment across Sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining the World Bank, Sreelakshmi was a Research Fellow at Harvard’s Evidence for Policy Design (EpoD), a field-based Research Analyst for Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and an Equity Salestrader in an investment bank in London. Sreelakshmi holds degrees from Yale University and University College London.

Rachael Pierotti is a Senior Social Scientist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she leads the Lab’s research agenda on social norms and gender-based violence. She also leads the Lab’s qualitative research team, which examines gender differences in entrepreneurship, youth employment and transitions to adulthood, the allocation of household resources and labor, and property rights. Additional research informs opportunities in program design and policy reforms for gender-based violence prevention and shifting rigid gender norms. Rachael received her PhD in sociology from the University of Michigan.

Raffaella Pizzamiglio is a Research Uptake Analyst at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she is the focal point for the Sahel region. She works closely with country operations to integrate evidence on what works to advance gender equality into program design, policy and legal reforms. She also supports drafting and dissemination of Sahel-focused knowledge products for donors, policy makers and national counterparts. Raffaella holds a Juris Doctor from LUISS Guido Carli University, and a Master of Laws (LLM) in Peace, Justice and Development from Leiden University. Before joining the World Bank, she has worked as a Research Specialist at the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), conducting empirical and desk research to inform policy, advocacy, and programming on rule of law, gender equality, and sustainable development issues. Raffaella’s experience includes field research in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa focused on strengthening institutional and legal frameworks, and empowering women and girls, in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Léa Rouanet is a Senior Economist working at the World Bank, where she is the Deputy Head of the Africa Gender Innovation Lab. As such, she leads the conceptualization and execution of the research uptake strategy of the Lab; and supervises all analysts within the team. She also leads several impact evaluations aiming to identify and address gender-based constraints to economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on adolescent girls’ empowerment and skills development programs. Before joining the World Bank, she was a PhD candidate and Research Fellow at the Paris School of Economics, where her research focused on nutrition, child mortality, fertility, and gender preferences in Africa. She holds a PhD in Economics from the Paris School of Economics.

Julia Vaillant is a Senior Economist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab. Her research focuses on finding what works to close gender gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa. She works on several impact evaluations in the areas of youth employment and social protection, gender-based violence, agriculture, and entrepreneurship. She currently leads the Nigeria Gender Innovation Lab, an effort to generate more evidence on how to economically empower women in Nigeria and to promote the use of the evidence in policy. She co-leads GIL’s gender and climate change cross-cutting area. Julia has a PhD in economics from Université Paris-Dauphine.

Toni Weis is a Financial Specialist at the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), where he (co)leads operational and analytical work on entrepreneurial finance and private-sector development. He has published reports on topics such as the African startup capital ecosystem and the gender gap in banking careers, as well as several case studies on GIL interventions. Toni joined GIL from the US Chamber of Commerce’s Center for International Private Enterprise where he led business advocacy campaigns across Africa. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Oxford, an MBA from the University of London, and an MA from Sciences Po Paris.