Pouirkèta Rita Nikiema is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Management at Université Norbert Zongo, Burkina Faso. She has worked as a Research Fellow at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in 2022 and a short-term consultant at World Bank, Africa Region Chief Economist Office in 2020. Pouirkèta is researcher with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP). She is member of the Association for the Advancement of African Women Economists (AAAWE), and the African Growth and Development Policy Modelling Consortium (AGRODEP). Her research interest are education economics, health and nutrition, gender and development, youth employment, financial inclusion, and impact evaluation. Pouirkèta holds a Ph.D in Applied Economics from the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal, and a master’s degree in Human Resource Economics from the Université Thomas SANKARA, Burkina Faso.