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With a growing global population and rising incomes, global collaboration is urgently needed to ensure sustainable agricultural growth and food security. The issue of food security and development was first taken up at the 2010 G20 Summit in Seoul, with the 2011 G20 Action Plan providing further commitment to the goals of sustainable agricultural development. […]

Some experts believed that by 2010, up to 50 million “environmental refugees” would flee their lands due to the dramatically negative effects of climate change. Such claims, however, are not based on the actual responses of households and communities to climate change but on broad estimates of the number of people “at risk” from the […]

One of the pillars of discussion at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) will be the green economy—an economy that pursues growth while promoting sustainable development through efficient use of resources, in particular natural resources such as water, arable land, and energy. The world’s population is expected to grow to more than 9 […]

A Spanish-language version of the popular CGIAR Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) sourcebook is now available. The sourcebook, Recursos, derechos y cooperación Manual de herramientas de referencia sobre derechos de propiedad y acción colectiva para el desarrollo sustentable, illustrates—through text and original hand-drawings—the lessons the CAPRi program has learned from its nearly 16 […]

Chennai, Tamil Nadu– The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in partnership with the e-Extension Centre of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), launched the Advancing Agricultural Practice portalhttp://www.advanceagripractice.in for the ICICI Knowledge Park (IKP) Centre for Advancement in Agricultural Practice (ICAAP) , a subsidiary of IKP Trust, Chennai today. It aims to improve agricultural productivity and […]

The second International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and IFPRI Impact Evaluation Seminar was webcast live on June 6. Erica Field of Duke University spoke about lessons from microfinance on debt structure, entrepreneurship, and risk. David Roodman of the Center for Global Development served as discussant. Field presented results from the paper Debt Structure, Entrepreneurship, and Risk: Evidence from Microfinance. This […]

Why do some people fall into the trap of chronic poverty and others are able to escape it? IFPRI convened a panel of experts yesterday to shed some light on factors that lead to chronic poverty, and policy actions that may help pull households out of it. The panel included Bob Baulch from the Chronic Poverty Research Center, IFPRI’s Agnes […]

By 2050, the world’s population will reach nine billion. At the same time, climate change could decrease crop yields by 20 to 30 percent. The urgent need for farmers to sustainably feed more people in a changing climate is one reason why United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development organizers identified food as one of seven areas in […]

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries has grown in importance in recent years, with increasing attention being paid to the potential impacts on agricultural development and food security for the developing world. In May, the FAO Committee on World Food Security endorsed the establishment of global guidelines on land tenure and access to natural resources, addressing […]

Ensuring access to safe, sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably grown food under a changing climate is a challenge for decisionmakers in Africa. Though adapting to climate change is only one of the issues that will be addressed by Rio+20 negotiators in June, it is a crucial issue facing Africa. It is anticipated that extreme weather events will […]

Following democratization in 1994, the Malawi government put great emphasis on reducing poverty. The predominantly agrarian economy has had little rural-urban migration and Malawi’s current level of industrialization and urbanization is low by world standards. A recent paper analyzes Malawi’s dependence on an agriculture-based development strategy. The authors find that the country currently does not place sufficient […]

President Barack Obama announced today at a major food security event in Washington, DC the launch of multi-billion dollar initiative in Africa that he said is designed to “reduce hunger and lift tens of millions of people from poverty.” The G8 countries will sign this agreement at their summit in Camp David this weekend. During his address […]

The role of bioenergy in a green economy, a subject of heated debate and concern among members of the international community, will be a topic of discussion at the Rio+20 negotiations. As IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report reveals, biofuels were once viewed as a means to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, whose carbon emissions contribute to climate change. Now, […]

The 2010-2011 drought in the Horn of Africa affected over 13 million people, most of whom were pastoralists. This group of people earn a living by raising livestock, producing firewood and charcoal, and engaging in a variety of other non-salaried forms of work. The size of this population in the Horn of Africa is estimated […]

Foreign aid to developing countries is the subject of debate among economists and development specialists. While some argue that aid promotes prosperity and reduces poverty, others assert that it hurts the economy and fosters poverty. Still others argue that aid has little impact one way or another. There is also disagreement about whether or not […]

A report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) suggests that addressing domestic policy is one of the best ways to tackle food insecurity. In particular, the organizations said that changing policy to better support small scale farmers could be one […]

With more and more money being spent on international development programs, there is growing demand from donors and policymakers for evidence that such programs actually make a difference in the lives of the world’s poor. The field of impact evaluation looks to answer the questions of whether research has led to desired policy changes and […]

HarvestChoice has just made accessing data about agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa easier. Launched this week, the newly-revamped HarvestChoice website gives easy access to interactive tools based on live databases and model simulation results. The cutting-edge MAPPR, for example, enables users to pick and choose among hundreds of “layers” of map-based information about all aspects of smallholder agriculture in […]

South Asia is a paradox. The region enjoys high economic growth but suffers from extreme poverty, undernourishment, and the deterioration of its natural resources. It houses more than 42 percent of the world’s poor earning less than US$ 1.25 per day. Undernourishment is widespread, especially among women and children. Nearly 21 percent of the population is undernourished. […]

In spite of Ethiopia’s widespread poverty and weak capacity for resilience against climate change, one region has used indigenous adaptation strategies to combat land degradation. People in the Tigray highland region of the country have mobilized collective action to manage land degradation exacerbated by the area’s poverty, high population, and recurrent droughts. A recent paper by Tyhra […]