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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.

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Eliot Jones-Garcia

Eliot Jones-Garcia is a Senior Research Analyst with the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on human-AI interaction, user-centered design, and the ethical and responsible development of AI. Eliot is currently finalizing a PhD on the digitalization of agricultural advisory services at Wageningen University & Research.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Lara Cockx

Research Fellow

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Lara Cockx

Bio

Lara Cockx is a Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, currently based at IFPRI’s Malawi Country Office in Lilongwe. Prior to joining IFPRI, Lara was a research fellow at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Spain, where she studied different aspects of food systems in West Africa.

She has also served as assistant professor of economics at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. She is an applied microeconomist with research interests in development and agricultural economics. Lara holds a PhD in Economics from KU Leuven in Belgium, and has published on topics including urbanization, internal migration, food security, and agricultural development.

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Publications

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Brief

The development potential of anchor enterprise models in Malawi

2025Benson, Todd; Cockx, Lara; De Weerdt, Joachim
Details

The development potential of anchor enterprise models in Malawi

Smallholder-centered agricultural development strategies have had limited success in Malawi over the past several decades. Policy makers are now increasingly looking for alternative ways to accelerate agricultural and rural development. One emerging approach involves larger farms or agri-business firms partnering with smallholder farming households, in what we will refer to as an anchor enterprise model. Support for such partnerships is growing, but there is still little clarity on what they involve, what they aim to achieve and the conditions they need for success. Summarizing findings from a detailed report (Benson, Cockx, and De Weerdt, forthcoming). This policy note seeks to address these questions and provide guidance for future action. We structure our discussion around five questions: what the model is, when it can make sense, for whom it can work, how it can be implemented, and whether it can contribute to inclusive rural development.

Year published

2025

Authors

Benson, Todd; Cockx, Lara; De Weerdt, Joachim

Citation

Benson, Todd; Cockx, Lara; and De Weerdt, Joachim. 2025. The development potential of anchor enterprise models in Malawi. MaSSP Policy Note 54. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178508

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Development; Enterprises; Contract Farming; Farming Systems

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Opinion Piece

Malawi can end hunger after the 2025 elections if bold steps are taken to transform food systems

2025De Weerdt, Joachim; Chirwa, Gowokani Chijere; Duchoslav, Jan; Nagoli, Joseph; Cockx, Lara
Details

Malawi can end hunger after the 2025 elections if bold steps are taken to transform food systems

Malawi has a history of peaceful democratic transitions. Since the advent of multiparty politics in 1994, power has regularly shifted between rival parties. Citizens and institutions have upheld electoral democratic norms, from respecting term limits to rerunning elections after irregularities. Yet, democratic elections haven’t translated into economic prosperity, nor into strong economic institutions. Malawi remains the world’s poorest conflict-free nation. At the last count in 2019, 70% of Malawians lived below the international poverty line of US$2.15 per day. More than half of Malawi’s residents are deprived in many, overlapping ways.

Year published

2025

Authors

De Weerdt, Joachim; Chirwa, Gowokani Chijere; Duchoslav, Jan; Nagoli, Joseph; Cockx, Lara

Citation

De Weerdt, Joachim; Chirwa, Gowokani Chijere; Duchoslav, Jan; Nagoli, Joseph; and Cockx, Lara. 2025. Malawi can end hunger after the 2025 elections if bold steps are taken to transform food systems. The Conversation. Article published September 14, 2025. https://doi.org/10.64628/AAJ.yyj5xdcek

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Hunger; Food Systems; Political Systems; Poverty

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.64628/AAJ.yyj5xdcek Source record

Record type

Opinion Piece

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Journal Article

Urbanization shapes West African diets throughout the rural-urban continuum

2025Cockx, Lara; Boti, Bolou Bi David
Details

Urbanization shapes West African diets throughout the rural-urban continuum

Our understanding of how urbanization interacts with food consumption has been hindered by the lack of a unified definition of what constitutes an “urban” area. The use of a binary designation also fails to capture the complexity and diversity of settlement types and results in a focus on the “rural-urban divide”. This study combines nationally representative survey data on household food consumption from eight West African countries with geospatial data capturing the urbanization gradient following the global definition of the Degree or Urbanization. This allows us to analyse consumption of different food groups, diet quality, and macronutrient intakes throughout the rural-urban continuum. We find robust evidence of an increasing rural-urban gradient in total food consumption, as well as a gradual shift away from traditional staple foods, towards increased consumption of foods that require less or no preparation. Residing in more urbanized areas is associated with greater diet diversity and increased consumption of vegetables and animal-source foods. Yet, rising intakes of unhealthy foods and fats in particular along the rural-urban continuum contribute to a deterioration of diet quality. While the estimated effects are strongest in cities, these diet transitions also take place in peri-urban areas and rural areas. This confirms the importance of moving beyond a simple rural-urban dichotomy in research and policy related to food consumption. The demonstrated importance of foods eaten away from home across the entire rural-urban continuum further underscores the need for more research to better understand this sector and explore how it can contribute to both employment and food security.

Year published

2025

Authors

Cockx, Lara; Boti, Bolou Bi David

Citation

Cockx, Lara; and Boti, Bolou Bi David. 2025. Urbanization shapes West African diets throughout the rural-urban continuum. Global Food Security 45(June 2025): 100858. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2025.100858

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Urbanization; Food Consumption; Spatial Data; Diet Quality; Nutrition

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2025.100858 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Research

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