Rosa Castro-Zarzur
Rosa Castro-Zarzur is an economist in AIR’s International Development Division, with extensive training in experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluations and more than seven years of experience conducting evaluations of social and agricultural programs in developing countries.
Her current work includes evaluating programs aimed at improving child wellbeing and reducing household poverty and vulnerability through a Cash+ program in Mozambique; enhancing women’s empowerment, female socio-economic status and addressing gender-based violence through women’s self-help and savings groups in Nigeria; and improving maternal and child nutrition through the reintroduction of the orange-fleshed sweet potato in rural Tanzania.
Dr. Castro-Zarzur is also the project director for the mixed-methods evaluation of the Breaking Barriers for Girls’ Education program in Chad and Niger, a multi-faceted nutrition and education intervention jointly implemented by the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and United Nations Population Fund.
She was a co-principal investigator on the impact evaluation of the Philippine Department of Agrarian Reform’s Parcelization Program. The study continues to be one of the very few experimental evaluations worldwide examining the impact of land rights on agricultural productivity and investments.
Dr. Castro-Zarzur has been part of the AIR evaluation team working on social protection projects, including several cash transfer and cash+ interventions, such as Zambia’s Child Grant Program, Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer Program, Zimbabwe’s National Harmonized Social Cash Transfer Program, and Mozambique’s Child Grant Program.
Ph.D., Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland – College Park; M.P.P., University of Chicago; B.A., Economics, Universidad de los Andes
