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April 15, 2024, marked the one year anniversary of the ongoing armed conflict in Sudan. The country's population is experiencing severe food insecurity, which calls for urgent and extensive interventions to enhance food aid, revitalize agricultural systems, and restore supply chains.
A new report published by the United Nations Development Programme and IFPRI assesses the social and economic impacts of the conflict on rural Sudan. The report is based on a comprehensive survey of 4,504 rural households across the country conducted from November 2023 to January 2024.
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 Globalization of the bioeconomy: Recent trends and drivers of bioeconomy programs and policies
Hybrid Policy Seminar | May 7, 2024, 9:00AM to 10:30AM EDT
Global Food Policy Report Launch
Hybrid Event | May 29, 2024, 9:00AM to 10:30AM EDT
Understanding the new dynamics of agri-food trade: Perspectives from Pascal Lamy
Hybrid Event | May 30, 2024, 2:30PM to 4:00PM EDT
CGIAR Science Week
Event | July 1-5, 2024
Please check our Events page for most recent updates.
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Food systems interventions for nutrition: Lessons from 6 program evaluations in Africa and South Asia: Global momentum for food systems strategies to improve nutrition is on the rise, but generating rigorous evidence on what types of interventions work is challenging. This new study co-authored by Jef Leroy identifies key methodological challenges and formulates recommendations to improve the quality of such studies. (Read article in The Journal of Nutrition)
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What I say depends on how you ask: Experimental evidence of the effect of framing on the measurement of attitudes: Statement framing can lead to meaningful bias in estimated relationships. Jeffrey Bloem and Khandker Wahedur Rahman use a survey experiment to document the presence of framing effects in the measurement of attitudes, finding that randomizing statement framing across respondents can address this bias. (Read article in Economics Letters)
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Women’s involvement in intra-household decision-making and infant and young child feeding practices in Central Asia: Globally, malnutrition accounts for half of all deaths among children under five years of age. Ensuring proper infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices is especially critical in Central Asia, where every fifth child under age five suffers from either stunting, wasting, or overweight. Katrina Kosec and co-authors find that woman’s greater decision-making power predicts greater adherence to recommended IYCF practices. (Read article in World Development)
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Impact of farm subsidies on global agricultural productivity: The agriculture sector receives substantial fiscal subsidies in various forms, including through programs that are linked to production and others that are decoupled. This study by Abdullah Mamun examines the impact of subsidies on productivity growth in agriculture globally. Regression results from the study suggest a strong positive effect of input subsidies on both output growth and labor productivity. (Read article in Agricultural Economics)
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IFPRI Director General Johan Swinnen represented IFPRI at the recent AGROFORUM 2024: Creating a Sustainable Agro-Industrial Sector in the Kyrgyz Republic, hosted by The World Bank in Bishkek on April 2, 2024. He participated in a panel discussion addressing ways to create a sustainable agro-industrial sector in the Kyrgyz Republic. (Learn more)
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On April 17, 2024, IFPRI hosted an event to present findings from a randomized controlled trial of Strengthening PSNP Institutions and Resilience, a graduation model program embedded within Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP). (Watch recording)
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A Devex event in partnership with CGIAR and IFPRI on April 19, 2024, convened nutrition and climate experts to discuss the vital role of healthy diets, showcase a suite of proven solutions across the agrifood value chain for improving diets in low- and middle-income countries, and examine how best to scale these solutions. (Watch recording)
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On April 24, 2024, IFPRI hosted a seminar drawing from a recent special issue in Food Policy titled “Dairy Development and Nutrition in the Developing World,” which summarizes the most recent evidence on dairy’s importance for child nutrition, as well as the economic challenges of accelerating dairy development in the Global South. (Watch recording)
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A webinar on April 29, 2024, with speakers from IFPRI, Land & Carbon Lab, Bezos Earth Fund, FAO and partners explored how advances in geospatial monitoring are helping create more sustainable and secure food systems. This event featured the latest updates to IFPRI’s Spatial Production Allocation Model. (Learn more)
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The war in Ukraine continues to undermine the food security of millions: An estimated 7.3 million Ukrainians—20 percent of the population, excluding those in Russian-occupied areas—face moderate or severe food insecurity, including 1.2 million children and 2 million elderly people. Ukraine faces one of the world’s largest current food crises, by absolute numbers of acute food-insecure people requiring food and livelihoods assistance. Rob Vos examines food insecurity in Ukraine. ( Read blog)
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Global fertilizer trade 2021-2023: What happened after war-related price spikes: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sent a shock through global fertilizer markets. Prices spiked, resulting in fears of widespread impacts on agricultural production. Since then, fertilizer prices have fallen from those initial highs and new trade routes and patterns have emerged. Charlotte Hebebrand and Joseph Glauber review how fertilizer trade has adjusted in 2023. ( Read blog)
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Southern Africa drought: Impacts on maize production: Parts of southern Africa have been experiencing a severe drought since late 2023, fueled by the ongoing El Niño Southern Oscillation. Maize yields have fallen sharply, threatening food security for millions of households depending on this key staple. Joseph Glauber and Weston Anderson explore factors that may mitigate the drought’s impacts on food security going forward. (Read blog)
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Act now to address Malawi’s looming food crisis: Malawi is facing a severe drought crisis linked to the El Niño climate phenomenon. On March 23, President Lazarus Chakwera declared a state of disaster in 23 of Malawi’s 28 districts in anticipation of a poor harvest and appealed for more than $200 million in humanitarian assistance. Jan Duchoslav, Joachim De Weerdt, and Rodwell Mzonde look at three broad sets of strategies that can help soften this blow. (Read blog)
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2023 Papua New Guinea Rural Household Survey: Insights on livelihoods and the agrifood system: A new IFPRI survey of rural households in Papua New Guinea (PNG)—the most expansive consumption expenditure survey in more than a decade—shows the continuing predominance of subsistence agriculture and that rural diets remain reliant on inexpensive, starchy staple foods. Trudie Sikas-Iha and Emily Schmidt delve into the PNG Rural Household Survey Report, launched on March 18 in Port Moresby, PNG. (Read blog)
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Study: Human milk banks offer a promising option to address sub-Saharan Africa’s staggeringly high neonatal mortality rates: Although global child survival rates have risen since 1990 and facility births have increased, improvements in neonatal mortality rates have lagged. Nutrition is one key to addressing neonatal mortality. Human milk is the optimal choice for feeding premature and low birth weight babies. Taddese Zerfu writes about a recent study conducted at Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, which found that a human milk bank and a lactation support program led to dramatic increases in newborn feeding with human milk and a reduction in average days spent in neonatal care. (Read blog)
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Addressing the global, life-long health impacts of zinc deficiency: Zinc is a crucial micronutrient for good health, and zinc deficiency is one of the most common forms of micronutrient malnutrition globally. Nicola Lowe, Andrew Hall, Martin Broadley, Jen Foley, Erick Boy, and Zulfiqar Bhutta discuss a recent article published in Advances in Nutrition that summarizes emerging developments in the understanding of zinc’s role in health, as well as solutions for improving zinc intake at the population level, including agricultural interventions. (Read blog)
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Exploring gender roles and women’s empowerment in the coffee value chain and coffee cooperatives: Women who join coffee cooperatives are found to have higher levels of decision-making power, but also experience higher levels of time poverty that can limit their ability to expand or improve their coffee production. Sarah Eissler and Deborah Rubin share results from a qualitative study—conducted by Cultural Practice LLC and the Mexican data collection firm Berumen as part of IFPRI’s Applying New Evidence for Women’s Empowerment (ANEW) project—on the operation of two coffee cooperatives in Mexico. (Read blog)
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Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2024: The GRFC provides a comprehensive analysis of global, regional and country-level acute food insecurity. The result of a collaborative effort between 16 partner agencies, including IFPRI, the report aims to inform humanitarian and development action by providing independent and consensus-based evidence and analysis. This year’s report found that in 2023, 281.6 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 59 food-crisis countries and territories. (Read report)
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Why a campaign has started to bring back some plants that have been forgotten NPR spoke with Purnima Menon on the challenges of getting healthy diets on plates worldwide. Much of the world depends on just a few crops for a significant portion of their food. This can be risky, especially with the added threat of climate change. “If you look across the world, and especially if you look at poor countries, what’s on people’s plates isn’t getting us anywhere close to the diverse diets that we want to see on people’s plates,” Menon said.
Satellite images show devastation in Sudan 1 year since conflict began: ABC News interviewed Oliver Kirui for an article on how satellite data is being used to analyze the impact of Sudan’s conflict on food security. “Satellite imagery shows the reduction in green vegetation cover, and the increased aridity points to the neglect or destruction of previously irrigated fields,” Kirui said. "The disruption of agricultural activities has severe implications for food security and livelihoods. This is compounded by the displacement of farming communities and the breakdown of supply chains.”
How Kenya is supporting peace in Ukraine on the world stage: Business Insider quotes Lensa Omune in an article on Kenya’s work to mitigate regional and global challenges. “The world is interconnected," Omune said. "Russia and Ukraine play a very big role in the commodity market, for instance, on fertilizer, food, and grain particularly. So, whenever there is a challenge, the people on the ground feel it."
Joseph Glauber on decrease in China’s food prices: In a video interview with CGTN America, Joseph Glauber noted, “You see a deceleration in prices globally, and commodity prices are down for most of the grains and seed oils, so important crops like wheat and corn and soybeans have all fallen a lot since those peaks we saw in 2022.”
Community health programmes and HIV/AIDS outcomes in Mozambique: VoxDev published an article co-authored by James Allen IV, which explores how a widely implemented HIV/AIDS program inadvertently decreased HIV testing by worsening misinformation and HIV-related stigmatizing attitudes, and how a simple follow-up intervention offset the program’s adverse effects.
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“Success has many parents”
At a recent high-level partnership roundtable with IFPRI, AGRA, the Business Council for International Understanding, and Corporate Council on Africa, Agnes Kalibata, President, AGRA, discussed how Rwanda managed to dramatically reduce poverty by focusing on the livelihoods of the poor, and pointed to the helpful evidence provided by IFPRI to support this effort.
The "Keys to strengthening institutions and investments in climate-smart agri-food systems to improve smallholder livelihoods in Africa" roundtable was held to reflect on the broader context of food systems transformation, emphasizing the importance of partnerships, learning, and actionable insights in addressing food insecurity and climate resilience in Africa. ( Watch the video)
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IFPRI and the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD), Viet Nam, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on April 11, 2024, in Hanoi.
“The signing of this MoU signifies a deepening commitment between IFPRI and IPSARD to collaborate on the government of Viet Nam’s critical initiatives for sustainable agrifood system development,” said Johan Swinnen, Director General of IFPRI. “By combining our efforts, we can foster innovation, build resilience, and drive positive change for the benefit of Viet Nam’s most vulnerable populations.” (Read press release)
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