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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

Lilia Bliznashka

Lily Bliznashka is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of multi-input nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions and the mechanisms through which they work to improve maternal and child health and nutrition globally. She has worked in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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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.

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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.

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Overview

IFPRI’s six research units focus on research and innovation to deliver integrated policies, investments, governance processes, and capacity building in support of sustainable and equitable food systems transformation to deliver improved livelihoods and healthy diets.

Agrifood Innovation and Resilience

Development Strategies and Governance

Agrifood systems play a critical role in economic development, poverty reduction, and nutrition improvement in low- and middle-income countries. Yet these systems face challenges from conflict, weather-related shocks, and political volatility that affect the prospects for equitable and sustainable growth. At the same time, rapid urbanization is reshaping patterns of food insecurity and elevating the importance of strong rural-urban linkages and decent off-farm jobs.

Foresight and Policy Modeling

Agrifood systems today are increasingly interconnected, but their future is less certain than ever before. Decision-makers — both public and private — need advance information to understand the growing complexity of these systems, navigate climate uncertainty and frequent crises, and manage trade-offs between competing interests and development goals.

Markets, Trade, and Institutions

Drastic changes in the functioning of food markets are needed to achieve food security and adequate nutrition for all people, as well as contributing to poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.

Nutrition, Diets, and Health

Poor diets are a primary cause of malnutrition and the leading cause of disease worldwide. Improving diets and addressing nutrition and health issues can improve people’s quality of life, increase their productivity, and save an estimated one in five lives annually.

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Improving access to resources and increasing participation and empowerment within agrifood systems is essential for improving well-being and livelihoods as well as increasing resilience of poor populations, particularly women and other vulnerable groups.

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Essential Reading
The Russia-Ukraine Conflict & Global Food Security
The Russia-Ukraine conflict and global food security

The Russia-Ukraine conflict and global food security

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sparking fears of a global food crisis, IFPRI responded rapidly to the need for information and policy advice to address the crisis. From the first moments of the conflict, a new IFPRI blog series provided critical information and insights into the impacts on food security, caused by rising food, fertilizer, and fuel prices and trade disruptions, for vulnerable countries and regions. This book is a compilation of those blog posts, which include analysis of trade flows, tracking of food prices and policy responses, and results of impact modeling. Together, they provide an overview of how the crisis has progressed, how the international community and individual countries responded with efforts to ensure food security, and what we are learning about the best ways to ensure food security in the aftermath of a major shock to global food systems.

Year published

2023

Engaging women's groups to improve nutrition
Engaging women’s groups to improve nutrition: Findings from an evaluation of the Jeevika multisectoral convergence pilot in Saharsa, Bihar

Engaging women’s groups to improve nutrition: Findings from an evaluation of the Jeevika multisectoral convergence pilot in Saharsa, Bihar

This report presents the endline findings of an impact evaluation of the JEEViKA Multisectoral Convergence pilot, designed as an effectiveness trial, in one district in Bihar, India. JEEViKA, a rural livelihoods project, supports self-help groups (SHGs) – savings and credit-based groups of about 15-20 women, mostly targeted toward those from poor households – with the aim of improving their livelihoods and enhancing household incomes. The JEEViKA Multisectoral Convergence (JEEViKA-MC) pilot went a step further, leveraging these SHGs to address the immediate and underlying determinants of undernutrition among women and children. The multisectoral convergence model, developed by the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society with technical support from the World Bank, was piloted in 12 Gram Panchayats of Saharsa district in Bihar. Two complementary sets of interventions-health and nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) to improve women’s knowledge and household practices, and efforts to improve service access through convergence -were layered onto the existing core package of JEEViKA activities and were targeted to women who were members of the SHGs already formed by JEEViKA. Within this target population, households with young children, mothers of young children, and pregnant women were the primary focus of the JEEViKA-MC pilot.

Year published

2019

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

show me what you eat
Show me what you eat: Assessing diets remotely through pictures

Show me what you eat: Assessing diets remotely through pictures

Goal: Using real-time smartphone meal pictures sent by rural or urban households to better monitor and assess the quality of their diets, and provide tailored recommendations to improve them. Detailed information on household and individual dietary intake is crucial for adequate nutritional monitoring and designing interventions to improve diets. Common recall-based methods are generally time consuming, costly, and subject to non-negligible measurement errors and potential biases. In addition, the scope of information that can be obtained in a regular survey is typically limited. Detailed diaries, in turn, are effort- and time-intensive and prone to errors. With increasing mobile penetration in both urban and rural areas, meal pictures can overcome some of these difficulties, providing real-time, detailed food intake information of individuals remotely and at a minimal cost. Moreover, pictures can be obtained over extended periods of time, beyond the standard short spans (i.e. 24-hours) in recall survey questions, with little to no data quality loss. Such rich consumption data can help identify and better understand vulnerabilities and nutritional imbalances —including specific macronutrient or micronutrient gaps or excesses—, and open the door for low-cost, individually tailored digital interventions to promote healthier diets. Moreover, crowdsourced data allow to identify locally available, affordable foods rich in specific nutrients consumed by similar households in the area. Interventions, in turn, can be delivered through text messages, interactive voice response (IVR), or phone calls, or videos or interactive games integrated into an app, benefitting from a two-way communication channel with individuals.

Year published

2021

Blogs

Can simpler, cheaper poverty graduation programs still deliver? Evidence from Ethiopia
Research Post
 | 
May 08, 2026

Can simpler, cheaper poverty graduation programs still deliver? Evidence from Ethiopia

By Jessica Leight, Daniel Gilligan, Melissa Hidrobo, Harold Alderman, and Michael Mulford

A “light touch” model delivers mixed results.

The Iran war: Farmers in Brazil and Argentina face rising fertilizer and energy prices
Issue Post
 | 
May 04, 2026

The Iran war: Farmers in Brazil and Argentina face rising fertilizer and energy prices

By Joseph Glauber, Valeria Piñeiro, and Juan Pablo Gianatiempo

The Strait of Hormuz closure reverberates through the food system.

School meals and school-based actions for people and the planet: Nourishing bodies, minds, and futures
Research Post
 | 
May 01, 2026

School meals and school-based actions for people and the planet: Nourishing bodies, minds, and futures

By Tamsin Zandstra, Aulo Gelli, Daniel Gilligan, and Eleanor Jones

Impacts on education and beyond.

See all our blogs