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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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Elodie Becquey

Elodie Becquey is a Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, based in IFPRI’s West and Central Africa office in Senegal. She has over 15 years of research experience in diet, nutrition, and food security in Africa, including countries such as Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, and Tanzania.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Nina Jovanovic

Associate Research Fellow

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Nina Jovanovic is an Associate Research Fellow in the Development Strategy and Governance Division based in Cairo, Egypt. Her dissertation looked at the effects of technology adoption decisions made by smallholder farmers with incomplete information. She completed her PhD in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University in 2023.

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Publications

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Brief

Addressing the double burden of malnutrition in Egypt: Report on a stakeholder workshop on key challenges, policy solutions, and research opportunities

2025Shokry, Nada; Jovanovic, Nina; Kurdi, Sikandra; Hamdy, Adham; Elkaramany, Mohamed
Details

Addressing the double burden of malnutrition in Egypt: Report on a stakeholder workshop on key challenges, policy solutions, and research opportunities

Key messages Parliamentarians, researchers, and development practitioners shared perspectives on the double burden of malnutrition in Egypt in roundtable discussions. Infrastructure gaps and policy and research strategy fragmentation are highlighted as challenges to accessibility of healthy food. Aggressive ads/media environment and inefficient nutrition education programs are regarded as negatively impacting consumer behavior. Economic factors are widely identified as a major driver of malnutrition. Recommended solutions include raising nutrition literacy, transitioning from food subsidies to vouchers, improving nutrition services infrastructure, taxing unhealthy foods, and fortifying staple foods. Participants called for continued dialogue between researchers and policymakers.

Year published

2025

Authors

Shokry, Nada; Jovanovic, Nina; Kurdi, Sikandra; Hamdy, Adham; Elkaramany, Mohamed

Citation

Shokry, Nada; Jovanovic, Nina; Kurdi, Sikandra; Hamdy, Adham; and Elkaramany, Mohamed. 2025. Addressing the double burden of malnutrition in Egypt: Report on a stakeholder workshop on key challenges, policy solutions, and research opportunities. MENA Policy Note 27. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/176182

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Northern Africa; Malnutrition; Infrastructure; Foods; Policies; Obesity; Poverty; Wasting Disease (nutritional Disorder)

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

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Book Chapter

Regional developments: Middle East and North Africa [in 2025 GFPR]

2025Kurdi, Sikandra; Hassan, Ganna; Jovanovic, Nina; Steinhuebel-Rasheed, Linda
Details

Regional developments: Middle East and North Africa [in 2025 GFPR]

Over the past 50 years, food and agricultural policy in the Middle East and North Africa has alternated between the dual aims of prioritizing efficiency and economic growth, and ensuring national security through food self-sufficiency and broad-based provision of staple commodities. This chapter summarizes the historical trends in policies and outcomes as the region moved from heavy state interference to a period of liberalization, first examining agricultural production and related policies and then consumers and food and nutrition policy, before concluding with emerging policy issues and research priorities. Book link: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174108

Year published

2025

Authors

Kurdi, Sikandra; Hassan, Ganna; Jovanovic, Nina; Steinhuebel-Rasheed, Linda

Citation

Kurdi, Sikandra; Hassan, Ganna; Jovanovic, Nina; and Steinhuebel-Rasheed, Linda. 2025. Regional developments: Middle East and North Africa. In Global food policy report 2025: Food policy: Lessons and priorities for a changing world, eds. Johan Swinnen and Christopher Barrett. Part Six: Regional Developments and Priorities, Chapter 24, Pp. 555-567. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174358

Keywords

Africa; Middle East; Northern Africa; Agricultural Policies; Policies; Social Protection; Research

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Journal Article

Estimating the direct and indirect effects of improved seed adoption on yields: Evidence from DNA-fingerprinting, crop cuts, and self-reporting in Ethiopia

2025Jovanovic, Nina; Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob
Details

Estimating the direct and indirect effects of improved seed adoption on yields: Evidence from DNA-fingerprinting, crop cuts, and self-reporting in Ethiopia

Farmers’ adoption of improved crop varieties could increase yields in low-income countries. However, the presence of measurement error in household surveys poses a challenge to estimating true returns. Using the 2018/19 Ethiopia Socio-economic Survey, we analyze the impacts of how three sources of measurement error: misperceptions of seed varieties, land area, and quantities harvested affect maize yields and input use. These data include DNA-fingerprinting of seed, GPS plot size information, and crop cuts that we compare to farmers’ self-reported estimates of these measures. Results indicate that the measurement error in self-reported seed variety adoption, especially from farmers who did not know they were using improved maize varieties, attenuates their estimated yield gains by 25 percentage points on average. The enhanced genetics of improved seed varieties accounts for a 41-percentage point yield increase over non-improved varieties, and increased input use accounts for a 30-percentage point gain for improved varieties on average. JEL classification: D13, O13, N57, Q12, Q16

Year published

2025

Authors

Jovanovic, Nina; Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob

Citation

Jovanovic, Nina; and Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob. 2025. Estimating the direct and indirect effects of improved seed adoption on yields: Evidence from DNA-fingerprinting, crop cuts, and self-reporting in Ethiopia. Journal of Development Economics 174(May 2025): 103466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103466

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Crop Yield; Deoxyribonuclease; Seed; Technology Adoption

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103466 Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Journal Article

Events

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

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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 […]