Subscribe

Back

Who we are

With research staff from more than 70 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

Kinya Kaibung’a

Kinya Kaibung’a is a Research Officer with the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has a keen interest in leveraging machine learning, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies to boost climate resilience and food security in smart agriculture systems.

Back

What we do

Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

Research topics

Projects and impact

Food Security Portal

Modeling tools

What’s new

Where we work

Back

Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country and Regional Offices

Research by country and region

Subscribe

experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Emily Myers

Senior Research Analyst

Follow

Emily

at:

ORCiD

Bio

Emily Myers is a Senior Research Analyst in the Poverty, Gender and Inclusion Unit, based in Washington, DC. She uses qualitative methods to investigate gendered constraints to women’s participation in agriculture. Emily has supported the development of various instruments to measure women’s empowerment, such as the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) and the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS). She earned an MPH from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Intersecting gender and youth financial inclusion in agrifood systems: Evidence from northern Nigeria

2026Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Heckert, Jessica; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Myers, Emily; Popoola, Olufemi; Kabir, Hauwa
Details

Intersecting gender and youth financial inclusion in agrifood systems: Evidence from northern Nigeria

The agrifood system employs one-third of the global workforce, yet young women and men continue to face persistent constraints to joining this workforce, including financial exclusion. Financial exclusion constrains agricultural employment by limiting young people’s ability to engage in work and to scale operations. Yet the existing literature often overlooks how gender and youth intersect within these dynamics. Using intersectionality theory and institutional analysis, this study examines barriers to financial access and adaptation strategies among young men and women (ages 18–30) in northern Nigeria’s agrifood systems. The analysis draws on 61 semi-structured interviews and 51 focus group discussions with young women and men, alongside key informant interviews with financial service providers and market actors, across five northern Nigerian states with large populations that are “unbanked,” meaning not engaged with formal financial institutions. Drawing on these qualitative data, the study reveals that formal and informal financial institutions jointly reproduce patterns of unequal gendered access. While young men leverage wider mobility and networks to secure trading capital, young women’s restricted mobility and limited collateral confine them to smallscale processing with few growth prospects. Financial exclusion is further compounded by geography, insecurity, and the gendered structure of digital finance. Youth adapt to these institutional gaps through collective savings, trust-based credit, and in-kind payments. The study calls for gender-sensitive, digitally inclusive financial services that complement informal systems, offering an integrated institutional–intersectional framework for promoting inclusive agrifood systems transformation. Its central contribution is an institutional–intersectional analysis of financial exclusion in agrifood systems, showing how formal and informal institutions jointly, rather than separately, produce gendered patterns of access.

Year published

2026

Authors

Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Heckert, Jessica; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Myers, Emily; Popoola, Olufemi; Kabir, Hauwa

Citation

Nwagboso, Chibuzo; Heckert, Jessica; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Myers, Emily; Popoola, Olufemi; and Kabir, Hauwa. 2026. Intersecting gender and youth financial inclusion in agrifood systems: Evidence from northern Nigeria. SFS4Youth Working Paper 18. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Organization. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/184760

Country/Region

Nigeria

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Western Africa; Gender; Youth; Financial Inclusion; Agrifood Systems; Capital; Access to Finance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Blog Post

What it takes to integrate women’s empowerment and nutrition in survey monitoring and policy at scale

2026Fabic, Madeleine Short; Harris-Fry, Helen; Kaaria, Susan; Paz, Florencia; Myers, Emily
Details

What it takes to integrate women’s empowerment and nutrition in survey monitoring and policy at scale

Key takeaways: Integrated data gives deeper insights. Collecting empowerment and nutrition data from the same individuals better reveals how women’s agency affects nutrition outcomes. Scaling requires more than good metrics. Government buy-in, strong institutional support, and stakeholder engagement are essential for lasting adoption. Simple, practical tools encourage use. Shorter survey modules and integration into existing surveys can reduce burden while improving monitoring and policy impact.

Year published

2026

Authors

Fabic, Madeleine Short; Harris-Fry, Helen; Kaaria, Susan; Paz, Florencia; Myers, Emily

Citation

Fabic, Madeleine Short; Harris-Fry, Helen; Kaaria, Susan; Paz, Florencia; and Myers, Emily. 2026. What it takes to integrate women’s empowerment and nutrition in survey monitoring and policy at scale. IFPRI Blog Post. https://www.ifpri.org/blog/what-it-takes-to-integrate-womens-empowerment-and-nutrition-in-survey-monitoring-and-policy-at-scale/

Keywords

Gender; Nutrition; Women’s Empowerment; Surveys; Policies

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Blog Post

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS): Development and psychometric assessment of a face-to-face survey module

2026
Yount, Kathryn M.; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Hassan, Md. Zahidul; Kanyanda, Shelton S. E.; Sharma, Sudhindra; Hassan, Md. Imrul; Heckert, Jessica; Paz, Florencia
…more Pokhrel, Pankaj; Vundru, Wilbert D.; Doss, Cheryl; Seymour, Greg; Moylan, Heather; Kilic, Talip; Myers, Emily; Faas, Simone; Cheong, Yuk Fai; Sinharoy, Sheela S.
Details

Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS): Development and psychometric assessment of a face-to-face survey module

Data to monitor progress towards gender-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) remain limited. A comprehensive, concise set of metrics is needed for routine national data collection to monitor progress toward these goals. Our team developed and tested the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) survey module for use by national statistical offices and survey organizations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to measure women’s and men’s empowerment. This paper summarizes the process of developing the WEMNS module and presents detailed results of a psychometric assessment of face-to-face surveys in Bangladesh, Malawi, and Nepal. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the pooled sample confirmed that most of the 13 item sets had adequately identified factor structures aligned with specific empowerment constructs and gender-related SDGs. In multi-group CFA assessing measurement equivalence of item sets across gender and countries, configural invariance was observed for 9 of 13 item sets across genders and across country settings. At least partial scalar invariance was observed for one item set across genders and no item sets across country settings. Spearman pairwise correlations among WEMNS factor scores derived from final CFA models showed weak associations, suggesting item sets were weakly related and distinct. Overall, Spearman pairwise correlations of 13 WEMNS-derived factor scores with external measures for basic needs, resources, agency, and subjective well-being were weak, but five moderately high correlations were conceptually aligned. In sum, the WEMNS measures require refinement and further psychometric assessment to confirm their use to make valid comparisons of empowerment across country settings and gender.

Year published

2026

Authors

Yount, Kathryn M.; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Hassan, Md. Zahidul; Kanyanda, Shelton S. E.; Sharma, Sudhindra; Hassan, Md. Imrul; Heckert, Jessica; Paz, Florencia; Pokhrel, Pankaj; Vundru, Wilbert D.; Doss, Cheryl; Seymour, Greg; Moylan, Heather; Kilic, Talip; Myers, Emily; Faas, Simone; Cheong, Yuk Fai; Sinharoy, Sheela S.

Citation

Yount, Kathryn M.; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Hassan, Md. Zahidul; et al. 2026. Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS): Development and psychometric assessment of a face-to-face survey module. PLoS One 21(5): e0345742. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0345742

Keywords

Africa; Asia; Women’s Empowerment; Surveys; Data Collection; Factor Analysis; Gender

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0345742 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

What it takes to integrate women’s empowerment and nutrition in survey monitoring and policy at scale
Event Post
 | 
July 28, 2026

What it takes to integrate women’s empowerment and nutrition in survey monitoring and policy at scale

By Madeleine Short Fabic, Helen Harris-Fry, Susan Kaaria, Flor Paz, and Emily Myers

The path to better data on gender and food systems.

How women view marriage and childbearing decisions: Recent WEMNS evidence from Liberia and Sierra Leone
Research Post
 | 
April 10, 2026

How women view marriage and childbearing decisions: Recent WEMNS evidence from Liberia and Sierra Leone

By Emily Myers and Flor Paz

Insights from IFPRI’s Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems.

Applying the Women's Empowerment Metric in National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) to build gender equity
Event Post
 | 
May 07, 2025

Applying the Women’s Empowerment Metric in National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) to build gender equity

By Emily Myers, Jessica Heckert, Hazel Malapit, Agnes Quisumbing, Flor Paz, Chiara Brunelli, and Chiara Gnetti

A tool to collect key data sometimes missing from household surveys.

View all Blogs

Events

2025 Gender Conference: Accelerating Equality in Food, Land, and Water Systems
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

October 7 to 9, 2025

2025 Gender Conference: Accelerating Equality in Food, Land, and Water Systems

Join the CGIAR Accelerator Gender Equality & Inclusion, in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Western Cape Government, in Cape Town for the 2025 Gender Conference, a pivotal gathering at the intersection of gender equality and sustainable development. This year’s theme, “Accelerating Equality in Food, Land, and Water Systems,” highlights the urgent need […]

Seeds of Change Conference
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

April 2 to 4, 2019

Seeds of Change Conference

IFPRI is participating extensively in the Seeds of Change conference— the first international conference on gender equality through agricultural research for development. This interdisciplinary conference brings together researchers and practitioners from diverse fields of social science and agriculture focusing on food/commodity/cash crops, subsistence/semi-subsistence sectors, supply chains, climate, forestry, fisheries, and water management. The conference is jointly funded […]

Pro-WEAI: A New Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

October 25, 2018, 9:00 – 12:00 pm

Pro-WEAI: A New Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects

The pro-WEAI is a new survey-based index that builds on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and is adapted for project use with a closer focus on aspects of empowerment related to health and nutrition. The index is being developed by IFPRI’s Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2), a learning and capacity-building initiative […]

View all Events