Subscribe

Back

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.

Ahmed Akhter

researcher spotlight

Akhter Ahmed

Akhter Ahmed is a Senior Research Fellow in the IFPRI’s Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit and Country Representative for IFPRI Bangladesh. He has worked on strategies for agricultural and rural development, social protection, and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and undernutrition in developing countries including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Malawi, the Philippines, and Turkey.

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

Modeling tools

Project microsites

What’s new

Where we work

Back

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

Research by country and region

Subscribe

experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Kalyani Raghunathan

Research Fellow

Follow

Kalyani

at:

ORCiD

Bio

Kalyani Raghunathan is Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in New Delhi, India. Her research lies at the intersection of agriculture, gender, social protection, and public health and nutrition, with a specific focus on South Asia and Africa. Her recent work uses a range of methods—from secondary data analysis to quasi-experimental evaluations and randomized controlled trials—and focuses on the affordability of nutritious diets as well as women’s microfinance and agriculture collectives and their impact on welfare, youth, and social protection.

Google Web Page

Research Gate Profile

Google Scholar Citations

CV

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Strengthening women’s livelihoods through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Policy strategies for resilience and inclusion: The Bhubaneshwar Charter

2025Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kosec, Katrina; Paul, Meekha Hannah; Kumar, Deepak; Agnihotri, Satish B.; Murthy, Indu K.; Sarathy, Partha; Panda, Aditi
Details

Strengthening women’s livelihoods through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Policy strategies for resilience and inclusion: The Bhubaneshwar Charter

Globally, there is increasing recognition of the significant potential for social protection programs to sup-port sustainable livelihoods and build household resilience to climatic and economic shocks (Jordan et al., 2021; Norton et al., 2020). For women—who disproportionately bear the burden of these shocks—such programs serve as a critical safety net and a pathway to economic empowerment (Kosec et al., 2023; Mason & Agan, 2015). Yet, the extent to which social protection delivers on this promise depends on robust financing, inclusive program design, and effective implementation. Evidence suggests that public interventions often fall short in addressing gender inequalities, and that complementary efforts must be made to redress entrenched disadvantages that women might face in shaping, accessing, and benefiting from these programs.

Year published

2025

Authors

Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kosec, Katrina; Paul, Meekha Hannah; Kumar, Deepak; Agnihotri, Satish B.; Murthy, Indu K.; Sarathy, Partha; Panda, Aditi

Citation

Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kosec, Katrina; Paul, Meekha Hannah; Kumar, Deepak; Agnihotri, Sat-ish B.; et al. 2025. Strengthening women’s livelihoods through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Policy strategies for resilience and inclusion: The Bhubaneshwar Charter. South Asia Policy Perspectives 3. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174707

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Livelihoods; Resilience; Social Protection; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Conditional contracts in indirect local procurement of maize from smallholder farmers in Uganda: A study design to assess impacts

2025Raghunathan, Kalyani; Abate, Gashaw T.; Van Campenhout, Bjorn; Nabwire, Leocardia; Mukangabo, Emerence; Mugabo, Serge; Benin, Samuel
Details

Conditional contracts in indirect local procurement of maize from smallholder farmers in Uganda: A study design to assess impacts

Improving smallholder farmers’ access to reliable markets can have significant impacts on their wellbeing, income, poverty reduction, dietary diversity, and rural economic growth. As the choice of marketing channels may influence outcomes differently depending on the context, a key issue is understanding the effectiveness of different marketing instruments. One such modality is a conditional contract between a buyer and the traders supplying it. Such a contract requires traders to source a certain percentage of their supplies directly from smallholder farmers. This raises the question of whether conditional contracts create access to reliable markets for smallholder farmers, result in value chain transformation, and sustain market engagement between traders and smallholder farmers.

Year published

2025

Authors

Raghunathan, Kalyani; Abate, Gashaw T.; Van Campenhout, Bjorn; Nabwire, Leocardia; Mukangabo, Emerence; Mugabo, Serge; Benin, Samuel

Citation

Raghunathan, Kalyani; Abate, Gashaw T.; Van Campenhout, Bjorn; Nabwire, Leocardia; Mukangabo, Emerence; Mugabo, Serge; and Benin, Samuel. 2025. Conditional contracts in indirect local procurement of maize from smallholder farmers in Uganda: A study design to assess impacts. SFS4Youth Project Note 2. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/172818

Country/Region

Uganda

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Contracts; Maize; Smallholders; Value Chains

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Can role models and skills training increase women’s voice in asset selection? Experimental evidence from Odisha, India

2024Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Ray, Soumyajit
Details

Can role models and skills training increase women’s voice in asset selection? Experimental evidence from Odisha, India

We explore the impacts of exposing women to female role models and providing skills training on outcomes related to women’s aspirations and engagement in demanding assets under India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)—the largest public works program in the world, which solicits citizen input on which assets to build and where. While the role model treatment exposes women to a video with stories of female role models from neighboring districts who successfully demanded assets, the skills training shows women how to identify individual and group needs for assets, frame their demands, and articulate them to public functionaries. In a randomized controlled trial spanning 94 villages and involving approximately 2,600 women, we find that exposure to role models alone has limited impacts, but when combined with skills training, there are strong positive impacts on women’s aspirations and engagement in demanding assets. This reveals that even a light-touch training can significantly benefit women’s voice and agency in village decision-making.

Year published

2024

Authors

Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Ray, Soumyajit

Citation

Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; and Ray, Soumyajit. 2024. Can role models and skills training increase women’s voice in asset selection? Experimental evidence from Odisha, India. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2315. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/169023

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Civil Society; Decision Making; Gender; Training; Women’s Empowerment

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

Events

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

August 2 to 7, 2024

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists

The triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE-2024), centred on the theme “Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems” is scheduled from August 2-7, 2024, in New Delhi, India. The conference offers a distinctive platform, providing a golden opportunity for the agricultural academic institutions and researchers to convene in person, exchange knowledge, and actively contribute to the […]

2024 GFPR India Launch
Series/Special Event

 | 

July 4, 2024, 10:00 – 5:20 pm

2024 GFPR India Launch

Unhealthy diets are a major driver of all forms of malnutrition, including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity. At the same time, our food systems contribute about a third of greenhouse gas emissions and degrade natural resources. The 2024 Global Food Policy Report examines policies, innovations, and governance solutions to strengthen diet quality and […]

From Research to Impact: Towards just and Resilient Agri-food Systems
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

October 9 to 12, 2023

From Research to Impact: Towards just and Resilient Agri-food Systems

Conference: October 09, 2023 – 9:00 AM to October 12, 2023 – 6:00 PM IST. IFPRI is participating in the 2023 annual CGIAR gender research conference will take place in New Delhi, India.

View all Events

News

November 09, 2022 | In the News

India’s double-edged nutrition problem (Code Blue) 

IFPRI’s research fellows Kalyani Raghunathan and Derek Headey, in an op-ed in Code Blue (Malaysia), focus on India’s problem of malnutrition, which includes under- and over-nutrition simultaneously. The authors discuss both the implications and policy recommendations to improve access to affordable healthy diets in the country. “Diet quality, already alarmingly bad, is only likely to have deteriorated in […]

October 21, 2020 | In the News

After Abysmal Hunger Index Rank, Paper Points Out 3 of 4 Rural Indians Can’t Afford Nutritious Diet (The Wire) 

The Wire (India) published an article on the results of the Global Hunger Index (GHI). According to GHI, India ranks 94 out of 107 nations and falls in the “serious” hunger category. Along with these results, IFPRI has published a Food Policy journal article titled Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India. Research Fellow Kalyani Raghunathan and Senior Research Fellow Derek Headey, with senior […]

October 14, 2020 | In the News

60 percent of rural India can’t afford nutritious diets (Hindustan Times)

Hindustan Times published an article focusing on a paper by Research Fellow Kalyani Raghunathan that states the cost of a recommended diet (CoRD) in India in 2011 (the most recent year for which expenditure and consumption data is available) was ₹45.1 and ₹51.3 for women and men, numbers that were almost 1.6 times the commonly used World Bank poverty line […]

View all News