Regina Birner joined the Development Strategy and Governance Division in September 2004 to lead IFPRI's research program on "Governance for Agriculture and Rural Development." Her research interests include the political economy of agricultural policy-making and the analysis of local governance, rural service provision and public sector reforms. Prior to joining IFPRI, she was an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Rural Development at the University of Göttingen, Germany, where her research focused on the analysis of political processes and on decentralization and collaborative governance in natural resource management. Dr. Birner served as Co-chair of the Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainable Development at Göttingen University and as Vice-chair of the German Council for Tropical and Sub-tropical Agricultural Research (ATSAF). She is a German citizen and holds a PhD in Socioeconomics of Rural Development from the University of Göttingen, and a M.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Munich-Weihenstephan, Germany.

• Ghana
• Guatemala
• Indonesia
• India
• Uganda
• Vietnam

• Regional Biotechnology Regulations – Design Options and Implications for Good Governance
  2008. Birner, R. and N. Linacre. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00753, Development Strategy and Governance Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.
• Public Administration Reform and Rural Service Provision: A Comparison of India and China
  2007. Birner, R., and N. Palaniswamy. In: Poverty Reduction Strategy in the New Millennium - Emerging Issues, Experiences and Lessons. Eds.: S. Fan and L Zhang, Financial and Economic Publishing House, Beijing: China, pp. 111-133.
• How to Make Agricultural Extension Demand-Driven? The Case of India's Agricultural Extension Policy
  2007. Birner, R. and J. Anderson. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00729, Development Strategy and Governance Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.
• Better Public Sector Governance through Partnership with the Private Sector and Civil Society: The Case of Guatemala’s Forest Administration
  2006. Birner, R. and H. Wittmer, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Vol. 72 (4): 459-472.
• Sustainable Agricultural Intensification in Forest Frontier Areas
  2006. Maertens, M., Zeller, M. and R. Birner, In: Agricultural Economics, Vol. 34, pp. 197–206.
• On the Efficient Boundaries of the State - The Contribution of Transaction Costs Economics to the Analysis of Decentralisation and Devolution in Natural Resource Management
  2004. Birner, R. and H. Wittmer. In Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, Vol. 22(5) October, pp. 667 - 685.
• Using Social Capital to Create Political Capital - How Do Local Communities Gain Political Influence? A Theoretical Approach and Empirical Evidence from Thailand
  2003. Birner, R. and H. Wittmer. In The Commons in the New Millennium, Challenges and Adaptation, ed. by N. Dolsak and E. Ostrom, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, pp. 291-334.