Oumou Diallo

Oumou Diallo is a development economist specializing in microeconomic impact evaluations and financial inclusion. She holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from Sherbrooke University in Quebec, Canada. Her academic research focuses on the challenges related to financing micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) excluded from traditional microcredit and commercial bank markets.

Oumou’s expertise builds on the numerous international development issues she has worked on (forced displacement, cash transfers, education, agriculture, and gender) and her experience with the private sector and international organizations.

She also has extensive regional experience in various countries (Uganda, Guinea, Benin, Niger, Mali, Togo, Panama, Ivory Coast) which allows her to tailor interventions to diverse socio-cultural contexts.

Since joining KIT in 2021, Oumou’s work has focused on agricultural development, integrated seed systems development, education, gender, and financial inclusion. She uses her expertise in rigorous impact evaluation to design, implement, analyze, and evaluate the effectiveness of development interventions using econometrics techniques (propensity score matching, difference-in-difference estimation, regression discontinuity design, etc.).

Her commitment to evidence-based practices, through the dissemination of knowledge about development programs, ensures that her work contributes meaningfully to the field.

Among other projects, Oumou has mostly worked on evaluating conditional cash transfer programs for cocoa farming households. This project aims to uplift the lives of those engaged in cocoa production, an essential sector in multiple African countries (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon). By evaluating the impact of cash transfers, Oumou seeks to identify sustainable solutions to improve livelihoods and reduce poverty.