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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.

researcher spotlight

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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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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TOPIC

Water and Irrigation Policy and Institutions

Globally, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of all water withdrawals, and water pollution poses a significant threat to human health and the environment. Growing water scarcity due to rapidly increasing demands on the resource as well as climate change require urgent improvements in water governance and more sustainable management practices that ensure water and food security for smallholder farmers and vulnerable communities. Our work provides policymakers with options to address growing water scarcity and water quality challenges by more efficiently allocating and managing water across sectors and within the agriculture sector.

IFPRI’s water research is unique because it jointly assesses water supply and demand together with food and nutrition outcomes, nonagricultural water demands, and environmental health at the local, basin, national, and global levels; and because of its interdisciplinary focus bringing together hydrological, economic, and institutional analysis tools to assess topics ranging from the financial and economic potential for sustainable expansion of irrigation to entry points to increase women’s agency in water management.

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IFPRI’s work includes a strong focus on water governance, to support the identification of appropriate roles for the state, private sector, and community organizations to improve the efficiency and equity of water use. Work at the community and river basin levels aims to build institutions and consensus around equitable, sustainable mechanisms for better managing water and protecting its vital ecosystem services and interlinkages with biodiversity and other natural resources. Through the CGIAR Research Initiative on NEXUS Gains, IFPRI researchers are working at the intersection of food, energy, and water security in five transboundary river basins to boost sustainable water resource management, protect biodiversity, and provide clean and inclusive access to energy for agrifood systems.IFPRI’s water research is closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 6, and with the CGIAR Impact Areas on Climate Adaptation and Mitigation; Environmental Health and Biodiversity; Nutrition, Health, and Food Security; and Poverty Reduction, Livelihoods, and Jobs.

water

topics

Publications

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Journal Article

Does small-scale irrigation affect women’s time allocation? Insights from Ethiopia

2025Lee, Yeyoung; Bryan, Elizabeth; Mason, Nicole M.; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku; Theriault, Veronique; Ringler, Claudia
Details

Does small-scale irrigation affect women’s time allocation? Insights from Ethiopia

Small-scale irrigation (SSI) interventions have received increasing attention as a potential pathway for women’s empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa. One key aspect of women’s empowerment that SSI can influence is women’s time burden. Hypothesized benefits of SSI for women are less energy exertion and reduced labor in agriculture. Yet, these hypotheses have not been tested empirically. We explore how household adoption of different SSI technologies affects the time allocation of women in the household, using two rounds of intrahousehold panel survey data from Ethiopia. Two different approaches are used to address potential endogeneity issues related to time-constant and time-varying factors that may be correlated with both SSI and time use: an instrumental variables-correlated random effects approach and a fractional multinomial logit-correlated random effects with control function approach. The results suggest that household use of SSI in general is associated with an increase in women’s leisure time. The results further suggest that household use of motor pumps is associated with an increase in women’s leisure time and reductions in the time they spend on farming and personal care. Given that women often provide the labor for irrigation using manual, labor-intensive methods, such as watering cans, buckets, or hand- or foot-powered treadle pumps, the results suggest that SSI using motorized methods has the potential to free up women’s time in farming and enable more leisure time. These findings have broad implications for women’s empowerment and labor allocation. Future research using new and more comprehensive data could explore the mechanisms for the findings in this study and determine if SSI enables women to improve their ability to allocate their time to activities they prefer.

Year published

2025

Authors

Lee, Yeyoung; Bryan, Elizabeth; Mason, Nicole M.; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku; Theriault, Veronique; Ringler, Claudia

Citation

Lee, Yeyoung; Bryan, Elizabeth; Mason, Nicole M.; Hassen, Ibrahim Worku; Theriault, Veronique; and Ringler, Claudia. 2025. Does small-scale irrigation affect women’s time allocation? Insights from Ethiopia. World Development 196(December 2025): 107106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107106

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Small-scale Irrigation; Women; Time Use Patterns; Women’s Empowerment; Gender; Logit Analysis; Water Management; Free Time

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107106 Source record

Project

Water, Land and Ecosystems

Record type

Journal Article

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Brief

Water insecurity in Sri Lanka, 2024-2025: Evidence from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey

2025Stifel, Elizabeth; Headey, Derek D.; Hülsen, Vivien; Munasinghe, Dilusha; Ranucci, Immacolata; Sabai, Moe; van Asselt, Joanna; Weerasinghe, Krishani
Details

Water insecurity in Sri Lanka, 2024-2025: Evidence from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey

We assess water insecurity in Sri Lanka using the BRIGHT Integrated Household Survey data for 2024-2025. Key Findings • Compared to the 2016 DHS data, the 2024 BRIGHT results show moderate improvements in access to improved drinking water sources. Estate sector households show the greatest relative improvement, with the share using improved water sources increasing by approximately five percentage points. This shift is driven primarily by a 15-percentage-point rise in the use of protected wells, although nearly half (49%) of estate households continue to rely on rivers, springs, or tank water. • Most households in Sri Lanka report few insecurity experiences, and are therefore mostly water secure, with 90% not experiencing water insecurity. • Differences between groups are subtle and occur mainly between marginal and low levels of water security, rather than between fully secure and insecure households. • 68% of estate households (households on plantations), experienced at least water insecurity experience compared to only 28% of urban households and 33% of rural households. • Households in dry agroecological zones face slightly higher risks water insecurity (11%) com-pared to 9% of in both intermediate and wet zones. • Poverty is a key predictor of water insecurity. The poorest households are 6.8 times more likely to experience extreme water insecurity than the richest households. • Sri Lanka has lower levels of water insecurity than most other lower-middle income countries but needs to address poor water security in populations left behind. Improving water security in estate areas and in the dry zone should be national water security priorities

Year published

2025

Authors

Stifel, Elizabeth; Headey, Derek D.; Hülsen, Vivien; Munasinghe, Dilusha; Ranucci, Immacolata; Sabai, Moe; van Asselt, Joanna; Weerasinghe, Krishani

Citation

Stifel, Elizabeth; Headey, Derek D.; Hülsen, Vivien; Munasinghe, Dilusha; Ranucci, Immacolata; et al. 2025. Water insecurity in Sri Lanka, 2024-2025: Evidence from the 2024-2025 BRIGHT survey. BRIGHT Sri Lanka Project Note 5. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178097

Country/Region

Sri Lanka

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Water Insecurity; Water Management; Households; Poverty; Water Security

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Multistakeholder platforms in transboundary waters: What do we know, and where should we go?

2025Lautze, Jonathan; Nehring, Ryan
Details

Multistakeholder platforms in transboundary waters: What do we know, and where should we go?

This policy brief synthesizes recent evidence on multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) in shared river basins and presents practical guidance for river basin organizations, development partners, and policymakers. It compares established basin-level MSP approaches across three basins (Nile, Zambezi, and Mekong) and describes how stakeholders in the Incomati and Maputo River Basins—shared across the Republic of South Africa, Eswatini, and Mozambique—built on these approaches to design their own MSP. This brief translates comparative evidence and field experience into a practical toolkit for advancing MSPs in shared basins.

Year published

2025

Authors

Lautze, Jonathan; Nehring, Ryan

Citation

Lautze, Jonathan; and Nehring, Ryan. 2025. Multistakeholder platforms in transboundary waters: What do we know, and where should we go? IFPRI Project Note. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178035

Keywords

Africa; Asia; River Basin Management; River Basins; Multi-stakeholder Processes; Transboundary Waters; Natural Resources Management; International Cooperation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Blogs

Bridging the gap: Unlocking intermediary bottlenecks for small-scale irrigation through human-centered design in Nigeria
IFPRI Blog
 | 
November 11, 2025

Bridging the gap: Unlocking intermediary bottlenecks for small-scale irrigation through human-centered design in Nigeria

By Bedru Balana, Augustine Iraoya, Abba Aminu, Musa T. Yakasai, and Claudia Ringler

Overcoming obstacles for farmers.

Understanding and supporting collective action in natural resource management through experiential learning games: Examples from three continents
IFPRI Blog
 | 
July 23, 2025

Understanding and supporting collective action in natural resource management through experiential learning games: Examples from three continents

By Hagar ElDidi, Thomas Falk, Juan Felipe Ortiz-Riomalo, Franziska Auch, Wei Zhang, and Upeksha Hettiarachchi

Fostering cooperative stewardship.

Reinventing payment for environmental services (PES) from the ground up: An alternative, community-driven model in China
IFPRI Blog
 | 
April 30, 2025

Reinventing payment for environmental services (PES) from the ground up: An alternative, community-driven model in China

By Yunyi Zhou, Wei Zhang, and Kevin Chen

Lessons from Qingshan village.

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Events

2025 Gender Conference: Accelerating Equality in Food, Land, and Water Systems
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

October 7 to 9, 2025

2025 Gender Conference: Accelerating Equality in Food, Land, and Water Systems

Join the CGIAR Accelerator Gender Equality & Inclusion, in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Western Cape Government, in Cape Town for the 2025 Gender Conference, a pivotal gathering at the intersection of gender equality and sustainable development. This year’s theme, “Accelerating Equality in Food, Land, and Water Systems,” highlights the urgent need […]

Long-term changes in Uganda’s soil health conditions and women’s responses to land degradation: A contribution to the African Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan 2023-2033
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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June 11, 2025, 2:00 – 5:00 pm

Long-term changes in Uganda’s soil health conditions and women’s responses to land degradation: A contribution to the African Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan 2023-2033

IFPRI in collaboration with Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), an autonomous public research agency under the auspices of the Ministry of Agricture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, has collected soil health data at plot level together with intra-household socioeconomic data and laboratory analyses of soil samples since 2003. The most recent data collection took place […]

Performance of Uganda’s UgIFT (Uganda's Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer Program) micro-scale irrigation program
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

June 11, 2025, 8:00 – 2:00 pm

Performance of Uganda’s UgIFT (Uganda’s Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer Program) micro-scale irrigation program

IFPRI researchers Kato Edward and Claudia Ringler presented findings from a performance evaluation of a matching grant subsidy program supporting smallholder farmers in acquiring micro-scale irrigation equipment, mostly solar-powered irrigation systems, in 66 of the 146 districts in Uganda. The micro irrigation program funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, […]

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News

May 07, 2025 | In the News

Experts stress importance of irrigation to nutrition, health outcomes (Nebraska Today)

Claudia Ringler delivered the keynote speech at the Heuermann Lecture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

June 14, 2024 | Press Release

New study emphasizes tradeoffs between arresting groundwater depletion and food security

A new study published today in Nature Sustainability, reaffirms the world’s growing dependence on depleting groundwater systems.

July 19, 2023 | In the News

Indonesia’s cassava push leaves bitter taste in Borneo rainforest (Context/Reuters) 

Although Indonesia has enough food to feed its people, it lacks variety beyond rice and tastes are changing as the country becomes wealthier, writes Context (by Thompson Reuters Foundation) in a piece on agricultural production of cassava in light of environmental needs and climate change.  About half the world’s population depends on rice as a […]

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Our experts

Claudia Ringler

Claudia Ringler

Director, Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR), Natural
Resources and Resilience

Nina Jovanovic

Nina Jovanovic

Associate Research Fellow, Development
Strategies and Governance

Khalid Siddig

Khalid Siddig

Senior Research Fellow, Development
Strategies and Governance