Agriculture Nutrition and Gender Linkages (ANGeL)

Reducing violence against women and girls

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global public health crisis and human rights violation, with adverse consequences for women and girls, economies as a whole, and future generations. Existing multicountry evidence suggests that the high prevalence of VAWG in low- and middle-income countries could be holding back advances in many priority areas — such as education (Gennari et al. 2014), health (Ellsberg et al. 2008), nutrition (Yount et al. 2011), adaptation to climate change (Le Masson et al. 2019), and adoption of sustainable livelihoods (Morrison and Orlando 2004). In the context of agricultural development, VAWG can reduce agency (Theis et al. 2018) — preventing women from seeking control over assets and income (instrumental agency), participating in groups (collective agency), and building self-worth (intrinsic agency). In addition, fear of sexual harassment and/or sexual violence in public spaces can induce girls or women to choose lower quality educational outcomes (Borker 2021), limit their opportunities for safe and decent work (Nordehn 2018), and depress their labor market participation (Chakraborty et al. 2018, Siddique 2021).

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture for gender equality

Globally, malnutrition remains unacceptably high, and its burden falls disproportionately on women and girls. The 2018 Global Nutrition Report states that women experience a disproportionate burden of some forms of malnutrition: one in three women of reproductive age has anemia; women have a higher prevalence of obesity than men—yet millions of women are underweight (Development Initiatives 2018). Women and adolescent girls have greater nutritional needs. For example, young women’s iron requirements are higher at puberty, and caloric and micronutrient needs are higher during pregnancy and lactation. Poor nutritional status for women and girls also has direct intergenerational consequences via pregnancy and childbirth outcomes (Victora et al. 2008, Black et al. 2013a). The first 1,000 days (start of pregnancy until the child’s second birthday) represent a critical window during which poor nutrition leads to irreversible deficits in children’s development, the ability to learn, and productivity and health in adulthood (ibid.).

Toward structural change: Gender transformative approaches

Almost a quarter of a century after the Beijing Declaration, and with 10 years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, The Guardian announced the SDG Gender Index’s finding that, “Not one single country is set to achieve gender equality by 2030” (Equal Measures 2030 2019, Ford 2019). This aligns with the most recent Global Gender Gap Index, which signals that, on the current trajectory, it will take approximately 170 years to achieve gender equality (WEF 2016)—a wait of seven generations, or two and a half lifetimes for the average woman.

Assessing women's empowerment in agricultural research

The concept of empowerment has steadily made its way onto the international development agenda. Batliwala (2007) traces its equivalents back several hundred years and across geographies in struggles for social justice. Feminists brought the concept of women’s empowerment to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where it gained traction, with the Beijing Declaration referring to “enhancing further the advancement and empowerment of women all over the world” (UN 1995, 7). Then, it was about collective struggles to challenge patriarchal structures, and intersecting structures of class, ethnicity, caste, and race, that shape women’s (subordinate) position in society (Batliwala 2007). Twenty years later, “empowerment” animates the fifth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG5): “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”

Designing for empowerment impact in agricultural development projects: Experimental evidence from the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) project in Bangladesh

The importance of women’s roles for nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects is increasingly recognized, yet little is known about whether such projects improve women’s empowerment and gender equality. We study the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project, which was implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial by the Government of Bangladesh. The project’s treatment arms included agricultural training, nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), and gender sensitization trainings delivered to husbands and wives together – with these components combined additively, such that the impact of gender sensitization could be distinguished from that of agriculture and nutrition trainings. Empowerment was measured using the internationally-validated project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), and attitudes regarding gender roles were elicited from both men and women, to explore potentially gender-transformative impacts. Our study finds that ANGeL increased both women’s and men’s empowerment, raised the prevalence of households achieving gender parity, and led to small improvements in the gender attitudes of both women and men. We find significant increases in women’s empowerment scores and empowerment status from all treatment arms but with no significant differences across these. We find no evidence of unintended impacts on workloads and inconclusive evidence around impacts on intimate partner violence. Our results also suggest some potential benefits of bundling nutrition and gender components with an agricultural development intervention; however, many of these benefits seem to be driven by bundling nutrition with agriculture. While we cannot assess the extent to which including men and women within the same treatment arms contributed to our results, it is plausible that the positive impacts of all treatment arms on women’s empowerment outcomes may have arisen from implementation modalities that provided information to both husbands and wives when they were together. The role of engaging men and women jointly in interventions is a promising area for future research.

Diagnostic study of the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU) in Bangladesh: Current structure, output, and analytical capacity (human and logistical)

For almost fifty years, the Food Planning and Monitoring Unit (FPMU) of the Ministry of Food has played a role in analysis and planning related to the Public Foodgrain Distribution System (PFDS) and food in Bangladesh. Supported by a series of major donor-funded technical sup-port projects, this small unit has had major positive impacts on food reforms, as well as decisions on timing of PFDS imports, domestic procurement and distribution. And in the last dec-ade, the FPMU has played a lead role in formulation and monitoring of Country Investment Plans for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition. Thus, the FPMU provides support not only to the Ministry of Food, but nine other ministries, as well. This expanded mandate and the increased complexity of food and nutrition in Bangladesh suggest the need for an in-depth examination of the FPMU’s structure and performance. This diag-nostic study, based on a review of documents, interviews of FPMU staff and other government offi-cials, stakeholder consultations and synthesis of findings, assesses the organizational structure, management, technical performance (data management and direct support to food implemen-tation) and capacity strengthening needs to provide insights on how to further enhance the FPMU’s effectiveness.

Constructing a nutrition deficiency index: Applications for the Democratic Republic of the Congo under a decade of humanitarian crises

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is perennially plagued by prolonged phases of poverty, conflict, and increased internal migration, as well as pandemic outbreaks such as Ebola and COVID-19, and limited livelihood opportunities. Such unexpected or catastrophic events have rendered households vulnerable and resulted in poor health outcomes. Given this background, we intend to analyze the nutritional profile of households for a period spanning almost a decade using the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES). We construct a composite nutrition deficiency index (NDI), capturing intake of 14 different macro- and micronutrients (which we refer to as dimensions)—namely, calories, protein, calcium, zinc, folate, thiamine, niacin, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin D, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and vitamin E—using the popular Alkire-Foster methodology. This methodology, usually used to construct multidimensional poverty indexes, in this case helps measure the incidence, intensity, and combined extent of multinutrient deprivation. DRC’s values on the multidimensional NDI vary regionally from 0.13 to 0.73. Urban DRC performs worse than rural DRC. Regions subject to the conflict and Ebola crises are the worst-affected of the nutritionally deprived regions. Deficiency in calorie and protein intake contributes to the highest values of the NDI, but we also find evidence of a double burden of malnutrition, with households lacking consumption of both macro- and micronutrients. South Kivu is the worst-performing of all regions and Mongala the best. The northern parts of DRC have fewer nutritionally deprived households, as compared with the central and southwestern parts. Our main recommendation is to help improve market access in urban areas so that people consume a more diverse diet. In rural areas, the government should support improving nutrition-sensitive agricultural production. Although the World Food Programme has a sustained presence in the country, uplifting households from severe hunger, active participation by the government and collaboration with multiple stakeholders is called for.

Replication Data for "Designing for Empowerment Impact in Agricultural Development Projects"

The dataset consists of the replication files from the analysis of the empowerment impact of the Agriculture, Gender, and Nutrition Linkages (ANGeL) project in Bangladesh. ANGeL was a cluster-randomized controlled trial implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Bangladesh, with IFPRI as its evaluation partner. ANGeL aimed to assess interventions that can leverage agricultural growth to increase farm household incomes, improve nutrition, and enhance women’s empowerment in Bangladesh. There were three types of interventions: (1 ) Agriculture Production: Facilitating the production of the high-value food commodities that are rich in essential nutrients; (2) Nutrition Knowledge: Conducting high-quality behavior change communication (BCC) to improve the nutrition knowledge of women and men; (3) Gender Sensitization: Undertaking gender sensitization activities that lead to the improvement in the status/empowerment of women and gender parity between women and men. We implemented a clustered randomized controlled trial with the following arms: T-A: Agricultural Production training; T-N: Nutrition Behavior Change Communication (BCC); T-AN: Agricultural Production training and Nutrition BCC; T-ANG: Agricultural Production training, Nutrition BCC, and Gender Sensitization; and C: Control. Details on sampling can be found in Quisumbing et al. (2021) [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105622]. Baseline data were collected between November 2015 and January 2016. Endline data were collected between January and March 2018. In each household, both the primary female beneficiary and primary male beneficiary were interviewed. Although the male and female beneficiaries were interviewed separately, some modules were answered by only the male (e.g., household demographics, assets and wealth, agricultural production, non-food consumption, and expenditures), some were answered by only the female (e.g., food consumption and food security indicators, dietary data, anthropometry, women’s status and decision-making autonomy, the experience of IPV), and some were answered separately by each (e.g., data needed to construct the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), gender attitudes, time preferences, agency). Several modules related to empowerment, gender attitudes, IPV, and experience with the program were administered only at endline. In the case of empowerment, the pro-WEAI (Malapit et al. 2019) [https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12374] was administered at endline but was not available at baseline as it was still under development; instead, at baseline, the abbreviated WEAI (A-WEAI, see Malapit et al. 2017) [http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/131231] was fielded. Questions on gender attitudes and IPV were motivated in part by the Nurturing Connections curriculum, which was made available after baseline, thus were included only at endline.

Feed the Future Bangladesh 2018/2019: Zone of influence endline assessment (April 2013 – December 2020)

Feed the Future seeks to sustainably reduce global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition by helping partner countries boost agriculture-led growth, resilience, and nutrition. Program efforts are designed to impact the population in Zones of Influence (ZOI) in Feed the Future target countries. Progress in achieving Feed the Future’s objectives is tracked using population-based performance indicators collected at baseline then periodically thereafter. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) produced this report for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS), USAID/Bangladesh, the Government of Bangladesh, and development partners. The report compares indicator estimates and select demographic and household characteristics from the 2018/2019 ZOI Survey, which serves as the Feed the Future Phase One endline survey, with the baseline assessment conducted in 2011/2012 in Bangladesh. This report only includes the Feed the Future Phase One indicators. Secondary data sources are used when needed or appropriate. The Feed the Future Phase One ZOI in Bangladesh includes mostly rural areas in 20 districts consisting of 120 upazilas (sub-districts) in three divisions in the south and southwest region of the country. This assessment provides information about progress on Feed the Future Phase One ZOI indicators. The assessment is designed to show changes in key indicator estimates from the Feed the Future Phase One baseline assessment to the endline assessment. The Feed the Future ZOI Survey endline assessment, however, was not designed to support conclusions of causality or program attribution.

Designing for empowerment impact in agricultural development projects: Experimental evidence from the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) project in Bangladesh

The importance of women’s roles for nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects is increasingly recognized, yet little is known about whether such projects improve women’s empowerment and gender equality. We study the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project, which was implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial by the Government of Bangladesh. The project’s treatment arms included agricultural training, nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), and gender sensitization trainings to husbands and wives together – with these components combined additively, such that the impact of gender sensitization could be distinguished from that of agriculture and nutrition trainings. Empowerment was measured using the internationally-validated project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), and attitudes regarding gender roles were elicited from both men and women, to explore potentially gender-transformative impacts. Our study finds that ANGeL increased both women’s and men’s empowerment, raised the prevalence of households achieving gender parity, and led to small improvements in the gender attitudes of both women and men. We find significant increases in women’s empowerment scores and empowerment status from all treatment arms but with no significant differences across these. We find no evidence of unintended impacts on workloads and we note inconclusive evidence of possible increases in intimate partner violence (IPV). Our results also suggest some potential benefits of bundling nutrition and gender components with an agricultural development intervention; however, many of these benefits seem to be driven by bundling nutrition with agriculture. While we cannot assess the extent to which including men and women within the same treatment arms contributed to our results, it is plausible that the positive impacts of all treatment arms on women’s empowerment outcomes may have arisen from implementation modalities that provided information to both husbands and wives when they were together. The role of engaging men and women jointly in interventions is a promising area for future research.

National extension policy and state level implementation: The case of Niger State in Nigeria

The aim of Nigeria’s extension reform and transformation agenda through its new national extension policy (NEP) is to put in place a legislated, pluralistic, farmer-responsive, and market-oriented extension system. The reformed extension system aims at an assured and regular source of funding and a well-trained and motivated staff, effectively catering for a variety of actors along targeted value chains. It also aims at effective integration of the complex innovation processes in the agricultural and food system transformation in Nigeria. Implementation of the NEP at the state level remains a major challenge. This paper documents issues, challenges, constraints, and potential solutions and opportunities in implementing NEP at the state level using Niger State as a case study. We use a qualitative method in the context of inclusive consultative process with a focus on the multi-stakeholder participatory model. We found that strengthening actors’ capacities for innovation by considering the complexity of agricultural innovation system is very critical to effective and successful implementation of national agricultural policies in Niger State. We confirm from our study that “networking, partnership facilitation, and collaboration” functions are crucial cross-cutting measures across the agricultural innovation system for operative and systematic implementation of the NEP in Niger State. Based on our findings in Niger State, even if we make effort to draw generic lessons for Nigeria, the case studies show that understanding the dynamics of efficiently and productively implementing the National Extension Policy remain case-specific, and no ‘silver bullet’ can be provided to support agricultural innovation system due to the complex federal governance system in Nigeria. Therefore, a state-level or case-specific is highly recommended for operational implementation process in Nigeria.

IFPRI in Asia

Highlights of IFPRI’s current cutting-edge, policy-relevant research in Central, East, South, and Southeast Asia are featured in this brochure. IFPRI works with partners throughout Asia to contribute to effective policies, programs, and investments that help ensure all people have access to safe, sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably grown food across the continent.

Resources: Agriculture, nutrition, and health

IFPRI’s mission is to provide research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. Recent publications and websites examine the critical links between agriculture, nutrition, and health.

2018 IFPRI annual report

IFPRI’s 2018 Annual Report shares highlights of our work, which together with partners has helped to develop and tailor knowledge to local contexts, build human and institutional capacity, and support development strategies in many countries around the world. Research findings and policy developments related to fostering climate resilience, agricultural transformation, healthy diets, inclusive and efficient markets, institutions and governance, and gender are presented, along with updates on other IFPRI areas of work.

IFPRI and Bangladesh: A strong partnership for food security and nutrition

IFPRI’s wide range of partnerships in Bangladesh have influenced the design and operation of large-scale national programs and provided real-time policy analysis during times of crisis. The country’s commitment to using research to guide policy decisions has helped to foster a culture of evaluation that can truly have an impact on hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI’s decades of research in Bangladesh are set against the context of longstanding partnerships with the government and national research organizations.

Resources: Gender

IFPRI’s mission is to provide research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. Recent open-access publications and websites address the role of gender, equity, and women’s empowerment in shaping and improving food security and nutrition outcomes in developing countries. For links to these and other resources: www.ifpri.org/topic/gender

2019 Global food policy report

IFPRI’s flagship report reviews the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2018, and considers challenges and opportunities for 2019. This year’s Global Food Policy Report highlights the urgency of rural revitalization to address a growing crisis in rural areas. Rural people around the world continue to struggle with food insecurity, persistent poverty and inequality, and environmental degradation. Policies, institutions, and investments that take advantage of new opportunities and technologies, increase access to basic services, create more and better rural jobs, foster gender equality, and restore the environment can make rural areas vibrant and healthy places to live and work. Drawing on recent findings, IFPRI researchers and other distinguished food policy experts consider critical aspects of rural revitalization.

The Synopsis is available at
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2019 Global food policy report: Synopsis. 2019. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293526

Diversifying rice-centric agriculture and diets: The Bangladesh experience

This chapter reviews recent policy developments in agriculture and nutrition in Bangladesh, and then draws upon household-level data to examine trends related to agricultural production, food consumption and nutrition, and women’s empowerment. Using this evidence, the authors present a government-led experiment that is working towards filling critical knowledge and action gaps for promoting nutrition-sensitive agriculture. Bringing together this evidence, they conclude that identifying, developing, and supporting synergies among the agriculture, nutrition, and health sectors is critical for Bangladesh to improve food and nutrition security.

Moving toward nutrition-sensitive agriculture strategies and programming in Ethiopia

This chapter begins with a discussion of Ethiopia’s various nutrition-related indicators, which show the persistence of child and adult malnutrition, despite some progress. It discusses the major programs and policies that have been launched during the past two decades within the nutrition and agriculture sectors, and at the global level too, and the synergies (and remaining gaps) between them. The sum of these developments reflect Ethiopia’s slow but promising shift to a coordinated, multisectoral approach to improving nutrition.

Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI)

In this paper, the authors describe the adaptation and validation of a project-level WEAI (or pro-WEAI) that agricultural development projects can use to identify key areas of women’s (and men’s) disempowerment, design appropriate strategies to address identified deficiencies, and monitor project outcomes related to women’s empowerment. The 12 pro-WEAI indicators are mapped to three domains: intrinsic agency (power within), instrumental agency (power to), and collective agency (power with). A gender parity index compares the empowerment scores of men and women in the same household. The authors describe the development of pro-WEAI, including: (1) pro-WEAI’s distinctiveness from other versions of the WEAI; (2) the process of piloting pro-WEAI in 13 agricultural development projects during the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, phase 2 (GAAP2); (3) analysis of quantitative data from the GAAP2 projects, including intrahousehold patterns of empowerment; and (4) a summary of the findings from the qualitative work exploring concepts of women’s empowerment in the project sites. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned from pro-WEAI and possibilities for further development of empowerment metrics.

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL)

What is ANGeL? IFPRI designed an innovative research program called “Orienting Agriculture toward Improved Nutrition and Women’s Empowerment,” or the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) Project. ANGeL was a 3-year initiative that aimed to identify actions and investments in agriculture to promote agricultural diversity, increase farm household income, improve nutrition, and empower women.

Qualitative research on women’s empowerment and participation in agricultural value chains in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, IFPRI has received support from USAID through its Policy Research and Strategy Support Program in Bangladesh (PRSSP) to work in the geographic areas targeted by Feed the Future interventions (known as the Zone of Influence) to construct this new WEAI4VC module. The qualitative research study, conducted by IFPRI field officers, complements a 1,200 household quantitative survey, looking in greater depth at the individual, household, and community level experiences of men and women to understand the consequences of value chain participation on them as producers, entrepreneurs, and wage workers on women’s empowerment. The quantitative study sampled 400 households for each of the three economic activities of interest – (1) agricultural production, (2) agricultural entrepreneurship, and (3) agriculture sector employment. It was carried out in ten administrative units (upazilas or sub-districts), and five villages in each upazila to total 50 villages.

Resources: Nutrition

IFPRI’s mission is to provide research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. Recent publications share knowledge and data that can contribute to addressing the challenges of climate change.

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) evaluation results

The relationships between agricultural diversity, dietary diversity, and gender norms are complex and multi-dimensional. To better understand these links, and how to most effectively promote nutrition- and gender-sensitive agriculture in Bangladesh, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) designed the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) pilot project, implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. ANGeL aimed to identify actions and investments in agriculture that will help increase farm household income, improve nutrition, and empower women. Using rigorous research, namely, a randomized controlled trial design, IFPRI assessed impacts of the ANGeL project interventions on various outcomes. Over the 17-month implementation period, with no inputs provided to participating farm households besides knowledge from trainings, ANGeL generated useful lessons on strengthening the agriculture-nutrition-gender nexus in the country. Both men and women benefited from agricultural trainings, yet women learned more from the same trainings. Crop diversity increased substantially in homestead gardens, mainly due to ANGeL’s emphasis on homestead food production from nutritious crops. Farmers also adopted improved production practices. We consistently found that women were more likely to apply knowledge gained from agricultural production trainings to adopt various types of improved agriculture production practices, such as pest disease and control, seed production and care, and use of quality fertilizer. Similarly, improvements in nutrition knowledge were far greater for women and when trainings were combined. These improvements in knowledge had impacts on nutrition outcomes, with increases in household diet quality and child dietary diversity over the project period. The strongest improvements in empowerment came when agriculture, nutrition, and gender sensitization trainings were combined. ANGeL’s household approach empowered women and men in unique ways: while women became more empowered in asset ownership and income decisions, men became more empowered in production and income decisions in select interventions. Attitudes related to gender of both women and men also improved, with more women recognizing that they make important contributions to their communities. ANGeL is the first ministry-led initiative that uses a rigorous impact evaluation to develop an evidence base to design and implement a national program. The ANGeL project is a significant step towards filling critical knowledge and action gaps in the country on promoting nutrition-and gender-sensitive agriculture.

A4NH 2017 annual report

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) is dedicated to the realization of Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 3, laid out by the United Nations. In 2017, A4NH began its second phase of work, with five research flagships, seven managing partners, and activities in more than 30 countries all working toward realizing this vision.

2017 IFPRI annual report

Despite strong economic growth in 2017, antiglobalization sentiments increased uncertainty about inter-national cooperation. A rise in hunger, linked with conflict and climate shocks, reconfirmed the importance of IFPRI’s mission-providing research-based policy solutions that reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition sustainably-and the need for greater global efforts to improve our food systems and accelerate progress toward ending hunger. With its refreshed strategy, IFPRI is proud to contribute to progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Regional developments [In 2018 Global food policy report]

At the regional and country level, developments in 2017 had important repercussions for food security and nutrition. This section offers perspectives on food policy developments across the major regions: Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Globalization and the impact of growing antiglobalization pressures on food security are examined for each region, along with many other current topics.

2018 Global food policy report

IFPRI's flagship report reviews the major food policy issues, developments, and decisions of 2017, and highlights challenges and opportunities for 2018 at the global and regional levels. This year's report looks at the impacts of greater global integration—including the movement of goods, investment, people, and knowledge—and the threat of current antiglobalization pressures. Drawing on recent research, IFPRI researchers and other distinguished food policy experts consider a range of timely topics: How can the global food system deliver food security for all in the face of the radical changes taking place today? What is the role of trade in improving food security, nutrition, and sustainability? How can international investment best contribute to local food security and better food systems in developing countries? Do voluntary and involuntary migration increase or decrease food security in source countries and host countries? What opportunities does greater data availability open up for improving agriculture and food security? How does reform of developed-country farm support policies affect global food security? How can global governance structures better address problems of food security and nutrition? What major trends and events affected food security and nutrition across the globe in 2017? The 2018 Global Food Policy Report also presents data tables and visualizations for several key food policy indicators, including country-level data on hunger, agricultural spending and research investment, and projections for future agricultural production and consumption. In addition to illustrative figures, tables, and a timeline of food policy events in 2017, the report includes the results of a global opinion poll on globalization and the current state of food policy.

This record also includes the following synopsis, translated into French, Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian:

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2018. 2018 Global food policy report: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896292987

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2018. Rapport sur les politiques alimentaires mondiales 2018: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293427

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2018. 2018 Global food policy report: Synopsis [in Bengali]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293472

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2018. 2018 Global food policy report: Synopsis [in Arabic]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293434

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2018. 2018 Global food policy report: Synopsis [in Chinese]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/132425

International Food Policy Research Institute. 2018. 2018 Global food policy report: Synopsis [in Russian]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/132554

CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets: CGIAR Portfolio 2017-2022 Program Leaflet

Sound policies, robust institutions, and well-functioning markets complement new discoveries of agricultural science to create dynamic and resilient food systems. The combination of strong agricultural science and good policy is especially important in poor rural areas, where many people depend on farming for their livelihoods. Agricultural growth creates new jobs both on and off farms as rural economies diversify. Consumers benefit from more affordable food. Landscapes recover as farmers, fishers, herders, and forest dwellers adopt better management regimes and develop new institutions for collaborative governance.

Bangladesh: Ending hunger and undernutrition: challenges and opportunities

A draft scoping report was prepared to inform the roundtable discussion by providing an overview of the food security and nutrition challenges and opportunities in Bangladesh. It reviews the current food security and nutrition policy landscape across key sectors and actors in Bangladesh as well as critical knowledge, policy, and implementation gaps. Additionally, the scoping report presents a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) that crystallizes the main elements that drive or hamper food security and nutrition in the country. To determine what is holding back progress, this report identifies several key research and action gaps, including understanding linkages across agriculture and nutrition as well as between nutrition and social protection, and building the evidence base for impacts of key nutrition interventions.

2016 IFPRI annual report

Growing international commitment to sustainable development goals and notable progress in addressing food security—reflected in historically low levels of poverty and hunger in many developing countries—marked 2016. These successes are building momentum as the world seeks to end hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI is proud to contribute to progress toward these vital global goals. 2016 was the first year of implementation of the ambitious UN Sustainable Development Goals. At the ministerial-level OECD Meeting of the Committee for Agriculture, IFPRI Director General Shenggen Fan argued that improvements in the global food system will play a key role in achieving the SDGs. The 2016 Global Food Policy Report focused on reshaping the global food system to make it efficient, climate resilient, sustainable, nutrition- and health-driven, and business friendly, as means to meet these goals. The report’s signature chapter, written in collaboration with IFAD President Kanayo Nwanze, highlights the critical role that smallholders can play both in improving food security and in addressing the challenge of climate change. The 22nd United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakech marked the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change. At the conference, IFPRI researchers conveyed the critical role of food systems in climate change, new projections on the impact of climate change on food security, and the need to invest in climate-smart agriculture. Nutrition has also been in the spotlight. As part of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition and in follow-up to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), IFPRI participated in the International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition, which explored options for shaping food systems to deliver nutritious food for healthy diets. At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, IFPRI hosted an event on how to fill the global and national data gap on nutrition. IFPRI published the 2016 Global Nutrition Report, highlighting progress toward and obstacles to better nutrition, and Nourishing Millions: Stories of Change, which recounts success stories in improving nutrition around the world. The annual meeting and report of ReSAKSS, an Africa-wide program supporting rural development, focused on achieving a nutrition revolution in Africa.

A4NH 2016 annual report

In its fifth and final year of Phase I, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) has validated its core areas of research, taking many to scale while also broadening its Phase II portfolio. By the end of 2016, more than 130 biofortified varieties of 10 crops were released in over 30 countries, all positive steps toward HarvestPlus’s goal of reaching 20 million farm households with biofortified crops by 2020 and 1 billion people consuming biofortified foods by 2030. High quality evidence—on topics such as emerging zoonoses, Rift Valley fever, aflatoxin control, and food safety in informal markets—helped inform policy and decision making to prevent and control agriculture-associated diseases in high-risk areas. Following a successful Nigeria pilot stage, the aflasafe™ approach for managing aflatoxins consistently reduced groundnut and maize aflatoxin contamination by at least 80 percent, with plans and investments to expand the approach to 11 other African countries. Rigorous evaluations of integrated agriculture-nutrition interventions demonstrated, for the first time, that well-designed programs can have measurable impacts on child and maternal nutrition, as well as on women’s empowerment.

How do agricultural development projects aim to empower women? Insights from an analysis of project strategies

Increasing numbers of development agencies and individual projects espouse objectives of women’s empowerment, yet there has been little systematic work on mechanisms by which interventions can enhance women’s empowerment. This gap exists because of the lack of consensus on indicators as well as the lack of attention paid to measuring the effects of different types of interventions on empowerment. This paper identifies the types of strategies employed by 13 agricultural development projects within the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project Phase 2 (GAAP2) that have explicit objectives of empowering women. We distinguish between reach, benefit, and empowerment as objectives of agricultural development projects. Simply including women does not necessarily benefit them, and even activities that benefit do not necessarily empower. To identify strategies to empower women, we build on the domains included in the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and are working with the GAAP2 portfolio of projects to develop an empowerment metric that is applicable in the project setting (a project-level WEAI, or pro-WEAI). We have identified the following potential domains to be included in pro-WEAI: input into production decision making, control over resources, control over income, leadership, time, physical mobility, intrahousehold relationships, individual empowerment, reduction in gender-based violence, and decision making on nutrition. The GAAP2 projects address these domains through a wide variety of activities that can be grouped into four main types: (1) direct and indirect provision of goods and services; (2) forming or strengthening groups, organizations, or platforms and networks that involve women; (3) strengthening knowledge and capacity through agricultural extension, business and finance training, nutrition behavior change communication, and other training; and (4) changing gender norms through one-way awareness raising or two-way community conversations about gender issues and their implications. In general, projects with activities in more activity areas target more domains of empowerment, and most projects target a core set of six empowerment domains. With the exception of intrahousehold relationships, which is always targeted by activities designed to influence gender norms, projects target domains with different types of activities or combinations of activities. This setup suggests that there may be no one-to-one link between a specific activity and empowerment benefits, and that implementation modalities will determine whether and how an activity contributes to women’s empowerment. The effectiveness of these project strategies will be assessed using both quantitative and qualitative methods throughout the GAAP2 research project.

Adapting to climate change: Scenario analysis of grain production in China

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of future climate change and the corresponding adaptation activities on grain production and its regional distribution in China.This paper applied the Chinese Agricultural Policy Analysis model, in combination with the findings from agronomic literature with highly detailed agricultural census data, to conduct equilibrium analysis under alternative impact (seasonal drought and climate warming) scenarios and adaptation scenarios (promoting water-saving irrigation, introducing new varieties, and the integrated) associated with climate change.Simulation results indicate that climate change-induced seasonal drought and the resulting yield reduction will incur substantial losses to China’s grain production (by ~8 percent at a national scale). The application of water saving techniques can be an effective solution to seasonal drought. Introducing new varieties will increase the combination of promoting water-saving irrigation and new variety adoption will increase combination of promoting water-saving irrigation and new variety adoption constitute an effective approach to offsetting the negative effects of climate change on grain production.Simulation results indicate that climate change-induced seasonal drought and the resulting sown area reduction will incur substantial losses to China’s grain production by approximately 8 percent, despite farmers’ adaptation activities of switching from water use-intensive crops to drought-tolerant crops to mitigate this negative effect. The application of water saving techniques is an effective solution to seasonal drought; it can lead to a nationwide increase in the sown area by 3.48 percent and in the grain production by 4.15 percent. Introducing new varieties will increase grain outputs and change the spatial distribution of crop production across the country. The combination of promoting water-saving irrigation and new variety adoption will increase the national grain production by 19.6 percent, and thus constitute an effective approach to offsetting the negative effects of climate change on grain production.Results from this study provide practical implications formulate strategies in response to climate change. Central government should reinforce the policies such as new varieties promotion and improve the subsidy method to guide the introduction of new varieties.

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) Baseline Study

1.1 Background Bangladesh has made commendable progress in domestic food production through public investments in agricultural research and extension, public and private investments in irrigation, and liberalization of agricultural input markets. In the early 1970s, Bangladesh was a food-deficit country with a population of about 75 million people. Today, the population has more than doubled, and the country is nearly self-sufficient in rice production, which has tripled over the past three decades. However, Bangladesh’s performance in improving child and maternal nutrition has been less satisfactory. Despite its success in reducing child stunting, the rate of stunting in Bangladesh (36 percent in 2014) remains high (NIPORT 2015). Bangladesh also continues to struggle with deficiencies in micronutrients such as iron, zinc, iodine, and vitamin A. Such deficiencies reflect poor diets that are rice-dominated, monotonous, and lacking diversity (Ahmed et al. 2013). Anemia (in part due to iron deficiency) is estimated to affect 26 percent of nonpregnant, non-lactating women, whereas 42 percent suffer from iodine deficiency. About 28 percent women of reproductive age are underweight (NIPORT 2015). In preschool children, the rates of anemia, iodine, and vitamin A deficiencies are 33 percent, 40 percent, and 20 percent, respectively (ICDDR,B 2013). Therefore, government policies and strategies underscore the importance of strengthening the linkage between agriculture and nutrition. Agriculture provides a source of food and nutrients, contributes to income, and affects food prices. Exploring agriculture and nutrition linkages in Bangladesh using data from a multi-round district level panel, a study finds that rice yields are associated with earlier introduction of complementary foods to young children, as well as increases in their weight-for-height (Heady and Hoddinott 2016). Agriculture can also have effects on women’s health, nutrition, empowerment and time allocation, which can have important consequences for their ability to care for family members. Given these links, agriculture has the potential to be a strong driver of nutrition. However, that potential is not being fully realized in Bangladesh because, traditionally, nutrition and agricultural policies have been uncoordinated. Low status of women and gender gaps in health and education contribute to chronic child undernutrition (Smith et al. 2003) and food insecurity (von Grebmer et al. 2009), even when other determinants of food security, such as per capita incomes, improve. According to an IFPRI study, women are key actors within the food system, but are historically disempowered in Bangladesh in terms of leadership in the community, control of resources, and control of income (Sraboni, Quisumbing, and Ahmed 2014a). The lack of women’s empowerment weakens the links between agriculture and nutrition. Despite increases in 2 women’s participation in agriculture in Bangladesh in recent years (Asaduzzaman 2010), women face persistent obstacles, particularly due to social and economic constraints, which limit their further inclusion in agriculture. Women have limited control over agricultural assets, as well as limited mobility to go to markets to sell agricultural produce, often relying on husbands and sons to take produce to market. 1.2 Motivation for the Study IFPRI research in Bangladesh, using data from a nationally representative household survey conducted by IFPRI, reveals that women’s empowerment plays a key role in improving household food security and dietary diversity of children, women, and other household members (Sraboni et al. 2014b; Malapit et al. 2015). The study also shows that agricultural production diversity is associated with dietary diversity (Sraboni et al. 2014b). Further, IFPRI research in Bangladesh shows that nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) training imparted to women and men in rural households leads to significant improvements in child nutrition and complementary feeding practices (Ahmed et al. 2016; Menon et al. 2016). Motivated by research-based evidence, IFPRI researchers developed a concept note to strengthen the agriculture-nutrition-gender nexus in Bangladesh and presented it to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in June 2014. Based on the concept note, an inter-ministerial committee of the Government of Bangladesh approved a pilot research project entitled, “Orienting Agriculture Toward Improved Nutrition and Women’s Empowerment”, also known as “Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages”(ANGeL), for implementation by the MOA, with technical assistance from IFPRI and Helen Keller International (HKI), and an evaluation led by IFPRI. The Minister of Agriculture officially launched the pilot project in October 2015. The project is jointly funded by the Government of Bangladesh and USAID. 1.3 The Baseline Report As part of the evaluation of the ANGeL Project, IFPRI carried out a baseline survey of project participants and a comparison group of households just before the start of project interventions. This report presents the results of the ANGeL baseline survey. It is organized in nine sections. Section 2 describes the salient features of the ANGeL Project. Section 3 presents the progress of the ANGeL Project to date. Section 4 describes the baseline survey. Section 5 gives a profile of the survey households. Section 6 provides the land tenure status of sample households and findings on agricultural production and practices. Section 7 presents patterns of food consumption and nutrition. Section 8 provides findings on women’s empowerment. Section 9 summarizes the main findings and provides conclusions.

Highlights of recent IFPRI research and partnerships in Bangladesh: Reducing poverty and hunger through food policy research

For more than two decades, IFPRI’s research and policy analysis have been a resource for Bangladesh in making impressive strides in ensuring food security and reducing poverty. Working closely with the Bangladesh Ministry of Food and Disaster Management and its Food Planning and Monitoring Unit, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, BRAC, CARE International, and civil society organizations, IFPRI has supported Bangladesh in its goals of improving nutrition, women’s empowerment, social protection, and coping with natural disasters. IFPRI looks forward to deepening its collaboration with these and other partners through its Policy Research and Strategy Support Program and complementary initiatives, and to enhancing long-term capacity in policy analysis and evidence-based research. Such strong collaborative efforts have translated and will continue to translate research into policy action that will help accelerate Bangladesh’s progress in ending hunger and undernutrition.

Measuring women’s empowerment in agriculture

WEAI is the first comprehensive and standardized measure of women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. WEAI is being used in the monitoring and evaluation of USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative in 19 countries. As of August 2016, at least 57 external organizations had used the WEAI in 35 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

A4NH 2015 annual report

In its fourth year, the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) has many accomplishments to be proud of and much to look forward to. By the end of 2015, biofortified staple foods had reached approximately 15 million people. The aflasafe™ approach for controlling aflatoxins was registered in Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal, with country investments secured to scale it up. The successful Together for Nutrition initiative expanded from India to Ethiopia, bringing together a range of nutrition stakeholders. The Global Nutrition Report (GNR) 2015 was released alongside the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, building off the success of GNR 2014 to guide nutrition action. Our research portfolio is expanding to include food systems and we are exploring new collaborations with public health partners. Our country and regional engagement contributes to agricultural programs and policies that can better achieve nutrition and health impacts. We also hear loud and clear from the development community that achieving these outcomes is a priority, and that doing so at scale requires making agriculture and other sectors more nutrition and health-sensitive.

Exploring strategic priorities for regional agricultural research and development investments in southern Africa

An in-depth quantitative analysis is undertaken in this paper to assist the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat, member countries, and development partners in setting future regional investment priorities for agricultural research and development in the SADC region. A primary goal of this work was to identify a range of agricultural research priorities for achieving sector productivity and overall economic growth in southern Africa, at both the country and regional levels. This is accomplished by adopting an integrated modeling framework that combines a disaggregated spatial analytical model with an economywide multimarket model developed specifically for the region.

Growth is good, but is not enough to improve nutrition

While it is generally agreed that growth is a necessary precondition for reducing poverty, relatively little is known about the relationship between economic growth and nutrition and, hence, how economic policies can be leveraged to improve nutrition. This brief argues that growth is good, but is not enough to improve nutrition. During the early stages of development, growth helps reduce the prevalence of calorie deficiency, and, in most countries, agricultural growth plays a key role. But malnutrition becomes less responsive to growth as its prevalence rate declines, so economic diversification into the manufacturing and service sectors becomes necessary to leverage further reductions in malnutrition, especially as people migrate into urban areas. Nevertheless, growth—whether driven by the agriculture or nonagriculture sectors—is insufficient to address child malnutrition and reduce micronutrient malnutrition in all their dimensions. Strategic investments and special programs are needed in the complementary sectors of health and education as well.

Recent trends and future prospects for agricultural growth, poverty reduction and investment in Southern Africa