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Who we are

With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Ruth Meinzen-Dick is a Senior Research Fellow in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. She has extensive transdisciplinary research experience in using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her work focuses on two broad (and sometimes interrelated) areas: how institutions affect how people manage natural resources, and the role of gender in development processes. 

Where we work

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Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country Programs

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partnerships

Cornell University is a private, Ivy league research university with a mission to help contribute to fields of knowledge that help improve quality of life at the local and global level. Through the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development (CIIFAD), Cornell helps to create and support programs aimed at improving prospects for global food security, sustainable rural development and environmental conservation around the world. Cornell fosters research that leads to new and practical solutions in the field of agriculture to create an impact world-wide.

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Projects

Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI)

Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI)

From 2012 to 2014, IFPRI partnered with the World Food Programme on a two-year pilot safety net program – the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI)……

Publications

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Working Paper

Does nutrition-sensitive social protection protection build longer-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

2024Ahmed, Akhter U.; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John; Roy, Shalini
Details

Does nutrition-sensitive social protection protection build longer-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Evidence shows that cash and in-kind transfer programs increase food security while interventions are ongoing, including during or immediately after shocks. But less is known about whether receipt of these programs can have protective effects for household food security against shocks that occur several years after interventions end. We study the effects of a transfer program implemented as a cluster-randomized control trial in rural Bangladesh from 2012-2014 – the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI) – on food security in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We assess TMRI’s impacts at three post-program time points: before the shock (2018), amidst the shock (2021), and after the immediate effects of the shock (2022). We find that TMRI showed protective effects on household food security during and after the pandemic, but program design features “mattered”; positive impacts were only seen in the treatment arm that combined cash transfers with nutrition behavior change communication (Cash+BCC). Other treatment arms – cash only, and food only – showed no significant sustained effects on our household food security measures after the intervention ended, nor did they show protective effects during the pandemic. A plausible mechanism is that investments made by Cash+BCC households in productive assets – specifically livestock – increased their pre-shock resilience capacity.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ahmed, Akhter U.; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John; Roy, Shalini

Citation

Ahmed, Akhter U.; Bakhtiar, M. Mehrab; Hoddinott, John; and Roy, Shalini. 2024. Does nutrition-sensitive social protection protection build longer-term resilience? Experimental evidence from Bangladesh. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2282. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155053

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Covid-19; Resilience; Shock; Social Protection

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Women’s empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: A secondary analysis of cross-sectional data

2023
Connors, Kaela; Jaacks, Lindsay M.; Awasthi, Ananya; Becker, Karoline; Kerr, Rachel Bezner; Fivian, Emily; Gelli, Aulo; Harris-Fry, Helen; Heckert, Jessica; Kadiyala, Suneetha
…more Martinez, Elena M.; Santoso, Marianne V.; Young, Sera L.; Bliznashka, Lilia
Details

Women’s empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: A secondary analysis of cross-sectional data

Background: Bolstering farm-level crop diversity is one strategy to strengthen food system resilience and achieve global food security. Women who live in rural areas play an essential role in food production; therefore, we aimed to assess the associations between women’s empowerment and crop diversity. Methods: In this secondary analysis of cross-sectional data, we used data from four cluster-randomised controlled trials done in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania. We assessed women’s empowerment using indicators from the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Farm-level crop diversity measures were the number of food crops grown, number of food groups grown, and if nutrient-dense crops were grown. We used a two-stage modelling approach. First, we analysed covariate-adjusted country-specific associations between women’s empowerment and crop diversity indicators using multivariable generalised linear models. Second, we pooled country-specific associations using random-effects models. Findings: The final analytic sample included 1735 women from Burkina Faso, 4450 women from India, 547 women from Malawi, and 574 women from Tanzania. Across all countries, compared with households in which women provided input into fewer productive decisions, households of women with greater input into productive decisions produced more food crops (mean difference 0·36 [95% CI 0·16–0·55]), a higher number of food groups (mean difference 0·16 [0·06–0·25]), and more nutrient-dense crops (percentage point difference 3 [95% CI 3–4]). Across all countries, each additional community group a woman actively participated in was associated with cultivating a higher number of food crops (mean difference 0·20 [0·04–0·35]) and a higher number of food groups (mean difference 0·11 [0·03–0·18]), but not more nutrient-dense crops. In pooled associations from Burkina Faso and India, asset ownership was associated with cultivating a higher number of food crops (mean difference 0·08 [0·04–0·12]) and a higher number of food groups (mean difference 0·05 [0·04–0·07]), but not more nutrient-dense crops. Interpretation: Greater women’s empowerment was associated with higher farm-level crop diversity among low-income agricultural households, suggesting that it could help enhance efforts to strengthen food system resilience.

Year published

2023

Authors

Connors, Kaela; Jaacks, Lindsay M.; Awasthi, Ananya; Becker, Karoline; Kerr, Rachel Bezner; Fivian, Emily; Gelli, Aulo; Harris-Fry, Helen; Heckert, Jessica; Kadiyala, Suneetha; Martinez, Elena M.; Santoso, Marianne V.; Young, Sera L.; Bliznashka, Lilia

Citation

Connors, Kaela; Jaacks, Lindsay M.; Awasthi, Ananya; Becker, Karoline; Kerr, Rachel Bezner; Gelli, Aulo; Heckert, Jessica; Kadiyala, Bliznashka, Lilia; et al. 2023. Women’s empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: A secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. Lancet Planetary Health 7(7): e558-e569. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00125-0

Country/Region

Burkina Faso; India; Malawi

Keywords

Tanzania; Western Africa; Africa; Southern Asia; Asia; Southern Africa; Eastern Africa; Data Analysis; Data; Women’s Empowerment; Food Production; Crops; Households; Agriculture; Food Security; Diversification; Rural Areas; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(23)00125-0 Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

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Working Paper

Linking crop productivity, market participation and technology use among smallholder farmers: Evidence from Uganda

2023Mpuuga, Dablin; Nakijoba, Sawuya; Ogwang, Ambrose; Boughton, Duncan; Benfica, Rui
Details

Linking crop productivity, market participation and technology use among smallholder farmers: Evidence from Uganda

In this paper, we establish the link between crop productivity, crop market participation and agricultural technology use among smallholder farmers. We take advantage of the latest four waves of the Uganda National Panel Survey – 2013/14, 2015/16, 2018/19, and 2019/20. First, we test for complementarity of agricultural technology use among smallholder farmers, and we do not find evidence for the combined effect of organic and inorganic fertilizers as well as pesticides and organic fertilizers on crop yields, which implies that there is lack of complementarity. More precisely, smallholder farmers mostly use these agricultural technologies in isolation. However, we find strong individual effect of organic fertilizers on cassava, beans, and coffee yields. Second, we use a two-step factor analysis to construct four technology sub-indexes for improved seeds, pesticides, organic, and inorganic fertilizers in the first step and the overall agricultural technology index in the second step. We run crop-specific models and the results re-affirm a positive effect of agricultural technology use on both cassava and coffee yields. Third, when we attempt to measure crop productivity as farm productivity, we find that a unit increase in inorganic fertilizers used increases farm crop productivity by 69%. We do not see this strong effect of inorganic fertilizers on our partial measure of crop productivity – crop yields – which implies that the way we measure crop productivity matters. We therefore conclude that of the four agricultural technologies, inorganic fertilizers have the strongest individual effect on farm productivity of smallholder farmers. Fourth, we employ the Heckman twostep technique to correct the selection bias in crop market participation outcomes. We do not find strong evidence of the effect of agricultural technology use on crop market participation, but we find that it is rather crop yields that are most critical for market participation. Therefore, a farmer’s cropproductivity is arguably the most critical facilitator or inhibitor of their market participation. More precisely, to boost crop market participation among smallholder farmers, increasing their productivity is a necessary condition.

Year published

2023

Authors

Mpuuga, Dablin; Nakijoba, Sawuya; Ogwang, Ambrose; Boughton, Duncan; Benfica, Rui

Citation

Mpuuga, Dablin; Nakijoba, Sawuya; Ogwang, Ambrose; Boughton, Duncan; and Benfica, Rui. 2023. Linking crop productivity, market participation and technology use among smallholder farmers: Evidence from Uganda. PRCI Research Paper 18. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University. https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/linking-crop-productivity-market-participation-and-technology-use-among-smallholder-farmers-evidence-from-uganda

Country/Region

Uganda

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Fertilizers; Agricultural Technology; Crops; Farmers; Capacity Development; Crop Yield; Smallholders; Productivity; Cassava; Coffee

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Events

Using Big Data and Machine Learning to Predict Poverty and Malnutrition for Targeting, Mapping, Monitoring, and Early Warning
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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July 28, 2021, 8:00 – 9:30 am

Using Big Data and Machine Learning to Predict Poverty and Malnutrition for Targeting, Mapping, Monitoring, and Early Warning

Virtual Event: July 28, 2021 – 08:00 AM to 9:30 EDT. This webinar will highlight the differences between poverty and malnutrition targeting and mapping. 

Better Measures of Land Surface Temperatures and Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) to Improve Monitoring for Drought-Stressed Crops and Crop Productivity
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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July 20, 2021, 10:00 – 11:30 am

Better Measures of Land Surface Temperatures and Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) to Improve Monitoring for Drought-Stressed Crops and Crop Productivity

Virtual Event: July 20, 2021 – 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM EDT. This webinar will discuss how satellite remote sensing offers an inexpensive, timely solution to monitor conditions on the Earth's surface. 

Virtual Event - Ethiopia’s agri-food system: Past trends, present challenges, and future scenarios
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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September 22, 2020, 8:30 – 10:00 am

Virtual Event – Ethiopia’s agri-food system: Past trends, present challenges, and future scenarios

Ethiopia has experienced impressive agricultural growth and poverty reduction, stemming in part from substantial public investments in agriculture. Yet, the agriculture sector now faces increasing land and water constraints along with other challenges to growth.  Growth in the agriculture sector remains essential to continued poverty reduction in Ethiopia and will depend on sustained investment in […]

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Blogs

The challenges of influencing consumer behavior to improve food safety
IFPRI Blog
 | 
August 31, 2020

The challenges of influencing consumer behavior to improve food safety

By Vivian Hoffmann and Emily Wu

Two studies in Kenya examine risk perceptions of aflatoxin in maize.

Linking iron-biofortified beans and physical performance
IFPRI Blog
 | 
March 03, 2020

Linking iron-biofortified beans and physical performance

By Laura Pompano

A study in Rwanda shows women who ate biofortified beans had more energy for daily tasks.