IFPRI Researchers Recognized by IAAE for Lifetime Contributions

Washington, DC: Three researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) were recognized today with prestigious awards from the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). 

Agnes Quisumbing, Claudia Ringler, and Johan Swinnen were all named Honorary Life Members of the Association. The award is the highest honor granted by the association, bestowed in recognition of career achievements and contributions to the field of agricultural economics generally as well as to the association itself.

Agnes Quisumbing, senior research fellow at IFPRI, has published peer-reviewed research widely on topics including gender, women’s empowerment, intrahousehold allocation, property rights, poverty, and economic mobility. Her work generated evidence based on primary data that rejected the idea that households could be modeled as unitary entities, contributing to the design of programs that target resources to women worldwide. She also co-developed the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), which is used in more than 50 countries worldwide to track gender equality and measure changes in the empowerment, agency, and inclusion of women in the agricultural sector.

Claudia Ringler, deputy division director of IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division, has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, primarily with a focus on global water and food security. More recently her work has also focused on gender, nutrition, climate change, and energy. She is also the deputy director of the CGIAR Program on Water, Land, and Ecosystems and a member of the Scientific Steering Committee on the Global Water Systems Project.

Johan Swinnen, director general of IFPRI since January 2020 and the global director of the CGIAR Systems Transformation Science Group, has published extensively on agricultural and food policies, international development, political economy, institutional reforms, trade, and global value chains. He served as IAAE president-elect, president, and past president from 2009 to 2018. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the AAEA 2020 Quality of Communications Award, the European Association of Agricultural Economists Book of the Year 2019, and honorary doctorates from the University of Göttingen and the Slovak University of Agriculture.

The awards will be presented during the International Conference of Agricultural Economists, August 17-31. The announcement of the awards was made on the IAAE website.

To speak with any of the award recipients, please contact Drew Sample: d.sample@cgiar.org.

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The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries. It is a research center of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development. Visit www.ifpri.org Follow: @IFPRI