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October 11, 2012 is the United Nation’s International Day of the Girl, dedicated to girls around the world because they suffer most from poverty, poor health, discrimination, and violence. Improving the well-being of girls around the world requires targeted research and programming. Girls, especially those between the ages of 5 and 19, are often overlooked by […]

Hunger is in the headlines. A drought that swept the African Sahel left 18 million people on the brink of starvation. A food price crisis prevented families across the globe from buying enough to eat. Civil unrest and natural disasters around the world left millions of displaced people scrambling for food. The seventh edition of IFPRI’s Global […]

What is agriculture’s potential to reduce poverty and promote economic development in Africa? IFPRI convened a panel of experts on October 9 to discuss key findings from a new book, “Strategies and Priorities for African Agriculture,” that tackles this question. The panel included Xinshen Diao, an IFPRI senior research fellow and the book’s lead editor, […]

Marking increased engagement in Central America, the International Food Policy Research Institute signed a Cooperation Framework Agreement with the Central American Integration System (SG-SICA) on September 21, 2012, at IFPRI headquarters.IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan and theSG-SICA Secretary General Juan Daniel Alemán Gurdián made the commitment to strengthen cooperation between the organizations on issues related to food and nutritional […]

IFPRI and its partners are pleased to announce that Jessica Ham (University of Georgia), Brooke Krause (University of Minnesota), Christopher Manyamba (University of Pretoria), and Greg Seymour (American University) have been awarded a Ph.D. dissertation research fellowships on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). The first of its kind to directly capture women’s empowerment and […]

IFPRI and its partners are pleased to announce that Jessica Ham (University of Georgia), Brooke Krause (University of Minnesota), Christopher Manyamba (University of Pretoria), and Greg Seymour (American University) have been awarded a Ph.D. dissertation research fellowships on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). The first of its kind to directly capture women’s empowerment and […]

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), which is one of two such programs led by IFPRI, launched its website this week. The site features information on A4NH projects, including the related impact pathways, partnerships, and outcomes. It also provides summaries of past events and a calendar of upcoming events. “We hope this site will be instrumental in sharing information […]

Since its inception in 2010, AGRODEP (African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium) has aimed to strengthen the capacity and reach of African researchers. The Consortium enables African researchers to become part of a large network of researchers and experts from Africa and beyond and provides opportunities to engage in ongoing debates on policy issues facing African countries […]

For several months each year, poor farmers in Ethiopia, especially those in drought-prone areas, go hungry. During the so-called “lean” period between planting and harvesting, food supplies can run dangerously low. Sometimes, families have to sell livestock, farming tools, and other precious assets to pay for food. In the past, the government and donors swept in […]

Planting trees and perennials (plants that live for two or more years) with food crops is a cost-effective way for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to boost yields and maximize limited resources, says a new Nature article co-authored by IFPRI’s Cindy Cox. The practice, called perenniation, improves soil fertility, which is one of the greatest challenges facing these […]

The African Growth and Development Policy (AGRODEP) Modeling Consortium has released the second edition of its AGRODEP Bulletin, a publication providing insights into major economic development issues in Africa. The Bulletin introduces research and capacity building activities undertaken by AGRODEP and announces publication of new economic data and statistics on Africa. Read more. In addition to AGRODEP activities, the bulletin highlights a paper by Senior Research […]

Asia—home to more than half of the world’s population—has made strides in staving off hunger and boosting the nutrition of its billions of residents. But food security challenges facing the region—from volatile food prices and urban-rural disparities to land and water constraints and climate change—call into question how the world will manage to feed the […]

What do droughts, food price spikes, and weddings have in common? They all have the potential to drive poor people further into poverty. A new IFPRI discussion paper reveals that frequent socializing is an unexpected reason why the health of children in impoverished rural China has improved little in past decades despite rapid annual income growth. The rich […]

Two women making great strides in reducing hunger and poverty in Africa—both of whom have ties to IFPRI— were tapped today as recipients of a prestigious, Africa-focused prize. Yara, a Norwegian fertilizer producer, awarded Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, founder and outgoing CEO of the Ethiopia Commodities Exchange(ECX) and Dr. Agnes Kalibata, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources in Rwanda, the The […]

The third International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and IFPRI Impact Evaluation Seminar will be webcast live on September 6.Renos Vakis of the World Bank will speak about lessons from a randomized experiment on cash transfers and childhood development in rural Nicaragua. Shareen Joshi of Georgetown University will act as discussant. Vakis will discuss results from the paper Cash Transfers, Behavioral […]

What happens when there are too many men (and not enough women)? They become entrepreneurs, work harder and longer, and save more. That’s what two researchers revealed in a new IFPRI study on the economic impact of too many marriage-eligible men in 1960s Taiwan, China. In the late 1940s, defeat by the Chinese Communist Party drove one million Chinese Nationalist […]

The drought that parched the US corn belt this summer highlighted the devastating impact of scant rain on food production. For smallholder farmers in semi-arid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where rain is rare or unpredictable—especially due to climate change—the challenge of watering crops is constant. If farmers in Africa, for example, were to tap into […]

A series of natural disasters in several food producing countries have lowered current and future production forecasts and driven up prices of many staples central to the global agricultural market. Much of the United States is experiencing the worst drought since the 1950s. About 75 percent of the corn and soybean production in the US is being […]

The roots of the “Arab Awakening” run deep. Several factors—political, economic, and sociological—led to the popular uprisings that erupted throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa this decade. Key among these factors was high and volatile food prices. A group of IFPRI researchers attending a major economic gathering in Brazil this week will reveal in a panel session tomorrow that […]

Press Statementby Shenggen Fan, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)August 06, 2012 Below-normal rainfall and above-normal temperatures have contributed to the most severe and extensive drought in the United States since the 1950s. Spanning over half the country, the severity of drought conditions increased dramatically since early July, adversely affecting the production of […]