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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.

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IFPRI Country Programs

Research by country and region

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Projects

The Food Security Simulator is an innovative, easy-to-use MS-Excel-based tool for assessing the potential short-term impacts of food price or household income shocks on food security and people’s diets.

The Simulator is an ideal tool for first-cut forward-looking evaluations of direct, household-level outcomes of economic crises and policy responses in a timely manner. The tool allows users to enter positive and negative price or income changes in percentage terms and provides simulated changes for a diverse set of food-consumption- and diet-quality-related indicators. In addition to detailed tabular presentations of all simulation results by household income quintile and residential area, key indicator results are summarized in concise overview tables and visualized in graphs for easy export and use in reports. The underlying data include estimates from representative household survey data and rigorous, sophisticated food demand models to capture consumer behavior.

Project duration: 2021 – ongoing

Contact

Andrew Comstock

Olivier Ecker

Donors and funders

CGIAR Trust Fund

Project partners

Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA)

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS)

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of Nigeria

Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS)

Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, and Poverty Alleviation Reduction (FMHAPA) Nigeria

Food Security Simulator – Kenya

Food Security Simulator – Nigeria

Publications

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Journal Article

Mitigating poverty and undernutrition through social protection: A simulation analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Myanmar

2023Ecker, Olivier; Alderman, Harold; Comstock, Andrew R.; Headey, Derek D.; Mahrt, Kristi; Pradesha, Angga
Details

Mitigating poverty and undernutrition through social protection: A simulation analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Myanmar

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe income losses, but little is known about its impacts on diets and nutritional adequacy, or the effectiveness of social protection interventions in mitigating dietary and nutritional impacts. We first assess the likely impacts of COVID-19 shocks in Bangladesh and Myanmar on poverty and food and nutrient consumption gaps. We then analyze the estimated mitigating effects of five hypothetical social protection interventions of a typical monetary value: (1) cash transfers; (2) in-kind transfers of common rice; (3) in-kind transfers of fortified rice enriched with multiple essential micronutrients; (4) vouchers for a diversified basket of rice and non-staple foods; and (5) food vouchers with fortified rice instead of common rice. The simulation results suggest modest effectiveness of the cash transfers for mitigating poverty increases and little effectiveness of all five transfers for preventing increasing food and nutrient consumption gaps among the poorest 40%. Rice fortification is, however, effective at closing key micronutrient consumption gaps and could be a suitable policy instrument for averting “hidden hunger” during economic crises.

Year published

2023

Authors

Ecker, Olivier; Alderman, Harold; Comstock, Andrew R.; Headey, Derek D.; Mahrt, Kristi; Pradesha, Angga

Citation

Ecker, Olivier; Alderman, Harold; Comstock, Andrew R.; Headey, Derek D.; Mahrt, Kristi; and Pradesha, Angga. 2023. Mitigating poverty and undernutrition through social protection: A simulation analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 45(4): 2034-2055. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13357

Country/Region

Bangladesh; Myanmar

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; South-eastern Asia; Coronavirus; Covid-19; Economic Crises; Rice; Social Protection; Hunger; Nutrition; Coronavirinae; Cash Transfers; Coronavirus Disease; Diet; Poverty

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13357 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Brief

A healthy diet is costly, but even with limited income Kenyans can eat better

2023Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew R.; Pauw, Karl
Details

A healthy diet is costly, but even with limited income Kenyans can eat better

Four important implications for policy to promote and guide a transformation toward healthy diets for all Kenyans can be drawn from this research: First, Kenya’s diet problem — the underconsumption of nutritious foods and increasingly high consumption of calorie-rich but micronutrient-sparse foods — is primarily a poverty problem. Most Kenyans simply cannot afford a healthy diet. Accelerated poverty reduction will have important nutritional benefits. Second, there are large differences between the costs of meeting dietary guidelines for highly nutritious foods and the costs of obtaining adequate amounts of calorie-dense staple foods. These cost gaps have a strong effect on household diets because the food choices of many Kenyan households are primarily driven by a need to satisfy calorie requirements. This points to a problem of relative food prices, which interacts with the poverty problem. It is most apparent for animal-source protein foods and, to a lesser degree, for vegetables. Thus, policy interventions and technological innovations that address this relative food price problem are needed to narrow the consumption gaps for nutritious food groups, particularly animal-source foods and vegetables. Third, the food preferences of Kenyans show that the poor-quality diets consumed by many households are not solely due to insufficient purchasing power and high prices for nutritious foods. This is most obvious for plant-based protein foods — pulses and nuts — which have low prices per calorie, but which few households consume in sufficient amounts to meet the recommended healthy intake. This weak consumer preference for such foods suggests a lack of knowledge of their nutritional value and their importance for healthy diets. Nutrition education may aid in changing consumer behavior to increase the consumption of pulses and nuts, as well as other nutritious foods that are now underconsumed relative to the healthy reference diet. Kenyans can consume more healthy diets with their current incomes. While healthy diets are costly for many Kenyan households, changes can be made in the current typical diet to achieve better and more balanced nutrient intake at the same cost. Finally, policies aimed at promoting food systems transformation in Kenya should factor in the dietary needs of Kenyans. As agriculture is the dominant sector in Kenya’s food systems, a balance must be found between traditional objectives including productivity growth, export stimulation, and farmer support, on the one hand, and the new responsibility of improving the availability of nutrient-dense foods for better nutrition and health for all Kenyans, on the other.

Year published

2023

Authors

Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew R.; Pauw, Karl

Citation

Ecker, Olivier; Comstock, Andrew R.; and Pauw, Karl. 2023. A healthy diet is costly, but even with limited income Kenyans can eat better. IFPRI Policy Brief June 2023. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294547

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Diet; Nutrition; Child Stunting; Food Consumption; Malnutrition; Income; Healthy Diets; Feeding Preferences; Food Prices

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294547 Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Dataset

Food Security Simulator — Kenya

2023International Food Policy Research Institute
Details

Food Security Simulator — Kenya

The Food Security Simulator is an innovative and easy to use, MS-Excel-based tool for assessing the potential short-term impacts of food price or household income shocks on food security and people’s diets. The Simulator is an ideal tool for first-cut forward-looking evaluations of direct, household-level outcomes of economic crises and policy responses in a timely manner. Key indicator results are summarized in concise overview tables and visualized in graphs. The underlying data include estimates from representative household survey data and rigorous, sophisticated food demand models to capture consumer behavior. The dataset is publicly available and can be downloaded from: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NS1A7V.

Year published

2023

Authors

International Food Policy Research Institute

Citation

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Food Security Simulator – Kenya. Washington, DC: IFPRI [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NS1A7V. Harvard Dataverse. Version 4.

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Food Security; Prices; Income; Shocks; Diet

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/ns1a7v Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Dataset

Blogs

The Reference Diet Deprivation (ReDD) index: A new diet quality measure for more effective nutrition-sensitive policies
IFPRI Blog
 | 
June 14, 2023

The Reference Diet Deprivation (ReDD) index: A new diet quality measure for more effective nutrition-sensitive policies

By Karl Pauw, Olivier Ecker, James Thurlow, and Andrew R. Comstock

Assessing how household diets fall short.

Events

The E-FooD Dataset and Food Security Simulators for Kenya and Nigeria: Innovative Tools to Support National Policies and Strategies
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

December 7, 2023, 8:00 – 9:00 am

The E-FooD Dataset and Food Security Simulators for Kenya and Nigeria: Innovative Tools to Support National Policies and Strategies

Virtual Event: December 7, 2023 – 8:00 AM- 9:00 AM EST. This webinar, organized by the CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), introduces the E-FooD dataset and FSS for Kenya and Nigeria, showcases their applications, and discusses the role that such tools can play in policymaking.

Donors

CGIAR Trust Fund

Team members

Olivier Ecker

Olivier Ecker

Senior Research Fellow, Foresight
and Policy Modeling

Hyacinth Edeh

Hyacinth Edeh

Country Program Manager, Development
Strategies and Governance

Lensa Omune

Lensa Omune

Research Officer, Development
Strategies and Governance

Other

Topics/Countries

Related links

External Resources

External blogs

External events

Various

Deliverable Datasets

Deliverable Models