IFPRI has long worked in South Asia, undertaking major projects on trade, markets, employment, nutrition, water, the adoption of agricultural technology, and other vital issues. Although the region has reduced the percentage of its population that is food and nutrition insecure, it remains home to the majority of the world’s hungry and malnourished people.

South Asia Initiative

To address this challenge and take advantage of new opportunities, IFPRI launched the South Asia Initiative (SAI) in 2002, opened an office in New Delhi in 2005, and appointed a director in Asia in 2006. The SAI pursues a three-pronged approach: it works with the Policy Analysis and Advisory Network for South Asia, a network of agricultural policymakers, advisors, and analysts, to promote effective policy dialogue; it facilitates collaborative research on key policy issues; and it works to strengthen local capacity.

Trade Liberalization and Food Security

Though until recently South Asian countries had policies that were protectionist at the border and interventionist within, many have implemented economic reforms to varying degrees. IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division (MTID) is analyzing the impact of the reforms on net food-importing versus net food-exporting countries, foodgrain marketing, and the integration of markets, as well as the role of safety nets in protecting the poorest peoples as reform unfolds.

Food Security, Nutrition, and Health

India’s Integrated Child Development Services program (ICDS), which provides health and nutrition programs for children and pregnant and lactating mothers and is the world’s largest program of its kind, has recently begun using locally produced food instead of imported food aid for its supplementary feeding programs. IFPRI’s Food Consumption and Nutrition Division (FCND) is studying the nutritional implications and quality of local foods, the operational challenges of the transition, the stability of the food supply, and the potential market and price effects of local procurement. A second phase of research, on strengthening social safety nets in the context of the ICDS, is also underway. FCND researchers are also studying the relative merits of food and cash transfer programs in improving the food security and livelihood of the ultra-poor in Bangladesh, and are evaluating a new program that encourages out-of-school children from the poorest segments of Bangladeshi society to attend non-formal, NGO-run schools. IFPRI’s MTID, meanwhile, is examining Bangladesh’s Public Food Distribution System, which distributes nearly 2 million tons of foodgrain each year.

South Asia Biosafety Program

Under this program, researchers from IFPRI’s Environment and Production Technology Division (EPTD) are assessing the impact of biosafety and marketing regulations on the adoption and value of genetically modified (GM) crops in India and Bangladesh, and are analyzing how alternative regulations and policies are affecting the production, consumption, and imports/exports of GM and non-GM crops.

The Dragon and the Elephant

China and India together account for 40 percent of the world’s population. Both have implemented a series of economic reforms in the past two and a half decades: China initiated this process at the end of the 1970s with reforms in the agriculture sector and in rural areas, while India began in the early 1990s by liberalizing and reforming the manufacturing sector. The different reform paths have led to different growth rates and, more importantly, to different rates of poverty reduction. They also have fundamentally different implications for growth and poverty reduction in the future. IFPRI researchers have been examining key aspects of these reforms and their relationship to outcomes, and have hosted three international “Dragon and Elephant” conferences on China and India, most recently in July 2006.