Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI)

Food security and nutrition in Bangladesh: Evidence-based strategies for advancement

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) prepared this report to provide a comprehensive assessment of food security in Bangladesh, with a focus on the core dimensions of availability, access, and utilization.

With support from Md. Al-Hasan, Sadat Anowar, Julie Ghostlaw, Mir Raihanul Islam, Razin Kabir, Md. Aminul Karim, Md. Aminul Islam Khandaker, Nabila Shaima, Raisa Shamma, and Sonjida Mesket Simi

Cooperation among community leaders: The role of women’s leadership and exposure to conflict

In rural settings, community leaders play important roles in mobilizing resources and delivering public goods and services. However, little is known about their attributes and incentives in delivering these public goods and services. Exploiting survey, lab-in-the-field experiment, and geo-referenced data, we study the role of leaders, especially women’s leadership, and their exposure to conflict in explaining differences in cooperation among com-munity leaders in Ethiopia. We measure cooperation through a public-good experiment and examine the implications of community leaders’ characteristics. We then merge these lab-in-the field experimental data with geo-referenced data on conflict exposure to examine the implication of different types of conflict on community leaders’ cooperation behavior. We find that female leaders contribute more to public goods than their male counterparts. For example, compared to those assuming the highest official administrative responsibility in the village, women leaders contribute about 11 percent more to the public good. We also document nuanced findings that reconcile existing mixed evidence on the implication of exposure to conflict on cooperation: while conflict events that affect the whole community, such as political violence (including battles) are associated with higher cooperation, other types of conflict (e.g., demonstrations and riots) are associated with lower levels of cooperation. Finally, we identify additional predictors of cooperation among community leaders, including beliefs about other leaders’ cooperative behavior. These findings shed light on potential avenues for facilitating and fostering cooperation among community leaders.

Unlocking locally-led resilience amid conflict and climate stress: Views from community leaders in Mali on development priorities, aid distribution, and anticipatory action

We surveyed 2,919 community leaders across seven regions of Mali to provide insights on the prevalence and severity of shocks and crises across localities; which types of shocks and crises are most difficult from which to recover; the formal and informal ways in which local actors are involved in aid distribution systems; and the types of programming local actors view as most beneficial for promoting resilience. Despite increasing prevalence of conflict across localities, leaders predominately cited climate-related shocks as the most difficult from which to recover— especially droughts. We find that localities vary in the inclusiveness of local governance around aid distribution: while elected mayors are almost always involved, traditional leaders, women’s group and youth leaders in villages, civil servants, and civil society leaders are each involved in 40–60% of localities. We used both a budget allocation exercise and an experimental game in which we introduced the concept of anticipatory action (AA) programming—aid that is “triggered” by an early warning signal to arrive before a shock and mitigate its worst effects—to probe preferences over aid modality. We found that leaders see value in balancing investment across resilience programming (including AA) and humanitarian response, especially food aid. However, there is some important variation between village- and commune-level officials: village-level leaders are more likely to prioritize aid modalities that target households directly, like food aid and cash transfers, while commune-level leaders are more likely to prioritize risk prevention trainings. Our findings have important policy implications for promoting local resilience in Mali, including the importance of investing more in drought resilience, engaging actors at different levels of local governance who have different information and perspectives, and simultaneously investing in capacity-building around early warning system accuracy and dissemination.

To defer or differ: Experimental evidence on the role of cash transfers on Nigerian couples’ decision-making

We conduct an original lab-in-the-field experiment on the decision–making process of married couples over the allocation of rival and non-rival household goods. The experiment measures individual preferences over allocations and traces the process of deferral, consultation, communication and accommodation by which couples implement these preferences. We find few differences in individual preferences over allocations of goods. However, wives and husbands have strong preferences over process: women prefer to defer decisions to their husbands even when deferral is costly and is not observed by the husband; men rarely defer under any condition. Our study follows a randomized controlled trial that ended a year earlier and gave large cash transfers over eighteen months to half of the women in the study. We estimate the effect of treatment on the demand for agency among women and find that the receipt of cash transfers does not change women’s bargaining process except in a secret condition when the decision to defer is shrouded from her husband. This suggests that the cash transfer to women increases their demand for agency but does not change the intra-household balance of power enough to allow them to express it publicly.

South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative: Abstract digest August 2024

In this third edition of the South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative’s Abstract Digest, we present studies on global, regional, and country-specific evidence on various topics of nutrition. These include the impact of short birth intervals on child malnutrition in the Asia-Pacific region, a summary of lessons from program evaluations of food systems interventions for nutrition in South Asia, the effect of zinc supplementation in pregnant and lactating mothers in a three-country study, and a review of evidence on school meals, impact on nutrition, and their other evolving dimensions.

The peer-reviewed country-specific studies are on anemia among women in Bangladesh, the double burden of malnutrition among women of reproductive age in India, and reproductive and child health transitions in India. Other country-specific studies pertain to community-based and nutrition program and multi-sectoral community development interventions in Nepal, and utilization of an integrated child development services program in India.

This issue also includes studies focusing on methods, such as measures for coverage of nutrition-sensitive social protection programs, a systematic scoping review examining aspects of quantitative nutrition research engaging with the intersectionality of inequities, a protocol to develop a data repository to support interdisciplinary research into childhood stunting, and a concept exploratory study on empowerment among adolescent girls.

We also highlight the availability of an open-access dataset for an integrated food systems assessment, which includes a wealth of data collected from Bangladesh, India, and Nepal spanning climate adaptation, agricultural production, food purchasing and shopping practices, gender disparities in unhealthy eating, adolescent diets and aspirations, and much more!

Below is the list of articles. Please scroll down to explore the abstracts in the pages that follow. If this Abstract Digest was forwarded to you, we invite you to subscribe.

Happy reading!

Effectiveness of current and alternative procurement modalities: An evaluation of the effectiveness of current and potential alternative grain procurement modalities, and development of a framework for stock turnover

This report has been prepared as one of the deliverables of the Bangladesh Integrated Food Policy Research Program (BIFPRP) implemented by the Ministry of Food, Government of Bangladesh under a World Investment for Modernizing Food Storages Facilities in the country. The key arguments and recommendations drawn up for the report are based on both quantitative and qualitative data. Food and agricultural policies have historically played a crucial role in triggering growth in many developing countries. While there were debates, public procurement and distribution of food are widely accepted as a “second best” solutions for countries characterized by markets and institutional failures. However, Bangladesh has done remarkably well in adjusting to changing realities and the country is now widely recognized for its agricultural policy reforms. But there is still room for further improvement and efficiency gains for which two broad sets of recommendation can be considered:
1) Pricing and procurement targets - Pricing in Bangladesh continues to be based on the average cost of production but with the application of satellite imageries, app-based small area estimation, the procurement price estimates can be improved substantially. Also, the current procurement target determination formula misses out on some key aspects of production, marketing, and macroeconomic parameters. The quota for each upazila is based on total production and milling capacities but it also needs to consider the net surplus to calculate how much could be procured in each Upazilas.
2) Alternative procurement modalities
a) The report recommends changing this modality to Delivered to Destination Warehouse (DDW) through the open tendering method and undertaking pilots and learning from experiences to enhance efficiency can be important.
b) Linking smallholders to markets through product aggregation has received renewed attention globally. Available data suggests that Bangladesh’s public procurement has thus far not managed to effectively integrate small farmers to its procurement system. To scale up nationally, we believe that more innovation in technology and a new institutional set up will be necessary.
c) Implementing Delivered Duty Paid Modality on a pilot basis where the seller assumes all responsibilities and costs for delivering the goods to the named place of destination.
d) Piloting Deficiency Payment Method as an effective method to provide both income and price to farmers of a wide range of agricultural commodities. Two key instruments of implementing this method would be Marketing Assistance Loan (MAL) and the Loan Deficiency Payment (LDP), which are tools available to the farmers. A recent report by the NITI Aayog of India also makes a strong case for this procurement modality and we also argue in favor of undertaking this pilot.

The effectiveness of cash and cash plus interventions on livelihoods outcomes: Evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis

Over the last 20 years, a burgeoning scholarly literature has analyzed the effects of cash transfer and cash plus interventions in a wide range of contexts and using a range of empirical designs. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the pooled effect of any cash or cash plus intervention on livelihoods-related outcomes (consumption, income and labor supply), ultimately compiling 305 different treatment estimates from 155 treatment arms in 104 studies (and in 43 countries). Using random effects and multilevel models, our findings suggest that cash transfer programming is associated with an increase of between $1 and $2 in monthly household consumption and income per $100 in cumulative transfers, an effect that persists for a period of roughly three years (inclusive of the period of program implementation); this effect is meaningfully larger (as much as $4 larger) for cash transfer programs that also include a cash plus livelihoods intervention. There are no significant effects observed on labor force participation. We also present a range of estimates capturing the longer-term (cumulative) effects of cash transfers on consumption under alternate assumptions.

South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative: Abstract digest June 2024

In this second edition of South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative’s Abstract Digest, we present insights from new global evidence on the double burden of underweight and obesity, interventions to improve women's diets, policy challenges related to unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children, and facilitators and barriers to implementing community-based interventions for addressing acute malnutrition in in low and middle-income countries.

This issue also includes studies from Bangladesh, India, and Nepal that examine anthropometric outcomes and their determinants, utilization of various social safety net programs and linkages to undernutrition, synergistic association of antenatal care and iron-folic acid supplementation on low birthweight, and global relevance of Multicenter Growth Reference Study. We also share IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report 2024, that highlights opportunities and challenges for transforming food systems for sustainable, and healthy diets for all.

Additionally, this edition features Agri-Food Systems Data Portal for India, launched by Anuvaad Solutions, and the document on adolescent health indicators recommended by the Global Action for Measurement of Adolescent health.

Below is the list of articles. Please scroll down to explore the abstracts in the pages that follow.

2023 IFPRI audited financial statements

Social protection and gender: policy, practice and research

Gender considerations in the design and delivery of social protection programs are critical to meet overall objectives of reducing poverty and vulnerability. We provide an overview of the policy discourse and research on social protection and gender in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on social assistance, social care, and social insurance. Taking a ‘review of reviews’ approach, we aggregate findings from rigorous evaluations on women's health, economic, empowerment, and violence impacts. We show there is robust evidence that social assistance has beneficial effects across all four domains. In addition, there is emerging evidence that social care has positive impacts on women’s economic outcomes, but scarce evidence of its impacts on other domains. Aggregated evidence on the impacts of social insurance are lacking. Key design elements facilitating positive impacts for women relate to gender targeting; quality complementary programming; replacing conditionalities with soft nudges; ensuring the value, frequency, and duration of benefits are sufficient; and gender-sensitive operational components. We close with a discussion of evidence gaps and priorities for future research.

IFPRI's country programs: Facilitating country-led food systems transformation

In most low- and middle-income countries, agrifood systems constitute a sizable share of economic activity and serve as a primary source of livelihoods, especially for poorer members of the population. As a result, national development strategies frequently put strong emphasis on the agrifood sector to achieve key goals, such as accelerating economic growth, reducing poverty, improving food and nutrition security, and confronting climate change. This emphasis was confirmed at the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit, where more than 100 countries committed to transforming their food systems to make them more productive, nutrition-focused, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable, and it was further reinforced by the Food and Agriculture Declaration at COP28. To achieve these desired transformations, governments require data and research based evidence to assess the situation, identify solutions, and prioritize actions. Governments are also increasingly interested in enhancing institutional capacity to support country-led development pathways.

Demand-side approaches: Supporting healthier food choices

Understanding individual food choices and their net aggregate — which constitutes demand — is essential for any effort to reshape food systems to achieve broad nutrition and sustainability goals. This chapter presents an overview of food choice and consumer food demand in complex food systems, provides a summary of evidence for demand-side approaches to improve the healthfulness of diets, and identifies key areas where demand-side approaches can foster healthier food choices to achieve optimal health and nutrition.

Regional developments [in 2024 Global Food Policy Report]

The regional section of the 2024 Global Food Policy Report examines the evolving problem of malnutrition—including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity—in low- and middle-income countries across the world’s major regions. Policy interventions are highlighted that address the particular challenges and opportunities in each region, with recommendations that aim to transform food systems to make healthier, more diverse, and more sustainable diets available, affordable, accessible, and desirable for everyone, including the most vulnerable.

Africa:
Diverse diet and nutrition conditions in Africa call for targeted strategies to increase the supply, affordability, and consumption of healthy foods, especially for the most vulnerable. Addressing the high burden of micronutrient deficiencies and undernutrition in the region will require lever¬aging local, national, regional, and continental food systems to increase the supply and reduce the cost of nutritious foods. This regional section discusses the importance of contextualizing evidence-based multisectoral policy and program approaches, and strengthening people’s resilience and capacity to cope with global threats posed by climate change, conflicts, and other shocks to support a shift to sustainable healthy diets.

Middle East and North Africa:
To achieve sustainable healthy diets in the Middle East and North Africa, multifaceted policy approaches are needed to boost the resilience of food systems to frequent shocks, which raise food prices and affect diet quality. National policy responses need to consider the region’s double burden of malnutrition along with other vulnerabilities, including climate change, water scarcity, and conflict, as well as more effective targeting of social protection for the most vulnerable groups, and reform of food subsidies to improve diets.

Central Asia:
Food systems in Central Asia face serious challenges related to diet quality and nutrition. Obstacles include the high cost of a healthy diet, inadequate nutrition knowledge, unhealthy consumption habits, and domestic and regional policies. This regional section discusses the additional impact of climate change, unstable commodity markets, and a heavy reliance on remittances and undiversified trade flows, and highlights several policy interventions that have potential to transform Central Asian food systems.

South Asia:
In South Asia, where levels of malnutrition are high and rates of diet-related noncommunicable diseases are rising, a shift toward healthier, more sustainable diets will require allocating more resources to promote production and consumption of non-staple foods. This regional section explores “crop-neutral” policies that would allow farmers to respond to market sig¬nals and contribute to diversification in domestic food production that could also reduce poverty. Taxes on foods high in fat, sugar, and salt could help slow the rapid increase in consumption of these foods, and effective front-of-package labeling can promote healthy food choices.

East and Southeast Asia:
Major challenges to achieving sustainable healthy diets in East and Southeast Asia include poor food standards, lack of consideration of diets and health in trade policies, and changing food demand. This regional section highlights multi-duty policy actions that are needed to address the double burden of malnutrition and its drivers, including rapid urbanization, income growth, and environmental changes. Policy reforms must consider the needs and preferences of diverse populations in the region, support the agency of the most marginalized producers and consumers, and strengthen regional cooperation to make diverse, healthy food available and accessible for all.

Latin America and the Caribbean:
To achieve sustainable healthy diets, the Latin America and Caribbean region will require both demand- and supply-side solutions, as well as changes in food environments to increase demand for healthy foods. This regional section discusses the complex challenge of identifying the most effective policies and standards to tackle malnutrition and obstacles to accessing and affording healthy diets. It highlights the importance of clearly defining objectives, strengthening social protection programs, addressing the driv¬ers of obesity and overweight, and increasing the availability and affordability of nutritious foods, while maintaining and expanding the region’s crucial role in global food security and nutrition.

Improved governance: Creating supportive environments for diet and nutrition policies

Most policy interventions to improve diet quality and nutrition require sound governance to be successful. Governance encompasses the interrelationships between formal institutions and informal modes of power, across different geographic scales, and among state and non-state actors. This chapter examines how multilevel and multistakeholder governance can be strengthened to improve diets, with a focus on enhancing state capacities, navigating corporate influence, and fostering citizen agency. The chapter highlights existing challenges in each of these areas while also discussing approaches that have potential to improve the governance environment at national and local scales.

Measuring women's empowerment in national surveys: Development of the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS)

Monitoring progress toward Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5—achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls—remains challenging unless we incorporate women’s empowerment metrics into nationally representative and multi-topic surveys. To address this data gap, we designed the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) as a streamlined empowerment module suitable for the 50x2030 Initiative, a global partnership that aims to build capacity and close the agricultural data gap in 50 countries by 2030, as well as other large multi-topic surveys. WEMNS measures women’s and men’s empowerment and is applicable to urban and rural areas and a variety of livelihood strategies (farming, self-employment, wage labor) across countries in different stages of structural transformation. WEMNS is a counting-based, multidimensional index composed of four domains: intrinsic agency, instrumental agency, collective agency, and agency-enabling resources. Each domain is measured with binary indicators derived from question sets in the WEMNS module. In this paper, we describe the development and testing of WEMNS and its components, including: (1) WEMNS's distinctiveness from other empowerment metrics; (2) the iterative approach used to develop and pilot the WEMNS module in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Malawi, and Nepal, using cognitive interviewing, phone surveys, and face-to-face surveys; (3) analysis of quantitative pilot data; and (4) a summary of the findings from the cognitive interviewing. The paper concludes with a discussion of lessons learned and possibilities for further development of WEMNS and other empowerment metrics.

Review of global agricultural emission databases

Since the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) has consistently risen, leading to a 1.15°C increase in global mean temperatures by 2022. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms human activities as the primary cause of global warming, with emissions continuing to rise. Climate change has resulted in adverse impacts on various fronts, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities. International efforts, including the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol, aimed at stabilizing green-house gas concentrations. These efforts were followed by the Paris Agreement in 2015, focusing on limiting global temperature increases and relying on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) from countries.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change mandates Countries to develop and regularly update national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and removals. These inventories, aligned with IPCC methodologies, serve as crucial tools for transparent reporting, building mutual trust among countries for effective climate change agreements. National GHG inventories play a vital role in policy development, monitoring impact, and tracking progress toward achieving NDCs outlined in inter-national agreements, such as the Paris Agreement.

Varying capacities for GHG inventory development among developing and developed countries, coupled with diverse reporting requirements, create challenges in data comparability. Developed countries face rigorous annual submission requirements, producing comprehensive National Inventory Reports and Common Reporting Format tables. In contrast, developing countries submit their national GHG inventories through Biennial Update Reports (BURs), and flexibility is granted to Least Developed Country Parties (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) regarding submission timelines. The re-porting landscape is progressing, with the introduction of the biennial transparency report (BTR) for Paris Agreement Parties. The BTR, due by December 31, 2024, will convergence in methodologies be-tween countries.

Institutional challenges to the implementation of nationally determined contributions in Latin America and Caribbean countries: Institutional architecture requirements, issues arising from the examination of NDC updates and lessons learned from capacity development interventions

The nations that signed the Paris Agreement periodically submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with climate mitigation and adaptation goals. Complementarily, countries should also formulate and implement National Adaptation Plans (NAP) and periodically update them. This means that every country is required by law to outline a course of action in response to global warming and submit a pledge with specific objectives it is committed to achieving. These pledges are then reviewed and renewed every five years. Every round of pledges is meant to intensify the level of commitment and is negotiable, meaning that other parties can offer concessions or support in return for a more robust pledge. The pledge and review method were introduced first in 1991; however, in 1997, the international community chose to adopt legally binding emission reduction targets in the Kyoto Protocol. The pledge and review methods were reintroduced in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, following its limited success and the inability to reach an agreement on new targets. The NDC wording took the place of the pledge-and-review expression in the negotiations that resulted in the Paris Agreement.

The fact that NDCs rely on voluntary commitments from signatory nations—many of whom lack the financial, technological, or institutional means to effectively combat climate change—has drawn criticism. Setting top-down targets, however, results in a distributional problem among nations that has proven unsolvable. Furthermore, targets are by no means a good solution in the absence of efficient review and compliance procedures. Since pledges—both in terms of the degree of commitment and the methods used—are subject to review and are not legally binding, NDCs offer a more practical strategy for international collaboration on mitigating climate change.1 The "naming and shaming" process—a form of peer and reputational pressure—is the foundation of the NDC method. Climate change politics have gradually changed because of the rise of bottom-up society initiatives and transnational networks of non-govern-mental actors, placing increased pressure on national governments and international organizations.

The enabling environment for large-scale food fortification in Madagascar

Why is there high variability—both across countries and across different food staples—in the adoption and implementation of large-scale food fortification (LSFF)? A systematic diagnostic of the enabling environment for LSFF can identify key bottlenecks and help to calibrate policy interventions appropriately. This paper delineates the components of such a tool by focusing on two core elements of the enabling environment—political will and implementation capacity—and applies the framework to Madagascar. With more than 75 percent of its population living below the poverty line and almost 40 percent of children under five who are stunted, Madagascar faces major hurdles to addressing malnutrition, including weak consumer purchasing power, recurrent political crises, and frequent climate shocks that undermine agricultural productivity. LSFF has been identified in several national nutrition plans as an option for addressing malnutrition. Yet, thus far, only salt has been fortified at a national scale.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 31 knowledgeable stakeholders in Madagascar in the areas of mandatory fortification of salt, voluntary targeted fortification of infant flour, and fortification of foods for humanitarian assistance, the framework reveals several key priorities. First, weak governance overall affects several dimensions of nutrition and fortification policy, including policy momentum, commitment, and communication. Nutrition interventions therefore need to be calibrated to the country’s broader political risks, incentive structures, and capacities of relevant civil servants. To this end, fortification advocates should go beyond drawing on the expertise of nutrition professionals alone and also engage public sector governance experts as partners in fortification efforts. Second, major priorities for investment include a large-scale micronutrient and consumption survey to update information on micronutrient deficiencies and identify viable food vehicles for mass fortification. Third, an accredited laboratory to test micronutrients is sorely needed in the country to help reduce costs faced by companies who currently send their products overseas for testing and who face competition from counterfeit products. Fourth, financial and technical partners must pursue a multi-pronged lobby approach to overcome high government taxes on imported premix. Fifth, the National Food Fortification Alliance, which serves as a multi-stakeholder platform, requires a sustainable financing model to attract committed leadership and ensure consistent coordination activities. These and other lessons hold policy relevance for other low-income and fragile settings where LSFF is being considered as an option to address micronutrient deficiencies.

2023 IFPRI annual report

IFPRI’s 2023 Annual Report offers highlights from our research around the world and of our analysis and communications on addressing global challenges that contribute to hunger and malnutrition. In 2023, IFPRI continued the critical work on crisis and resilience-building that began with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and rising food prices. Our research also continued to inform policymakers and stakeholders on climate resilience and sustainability, healthy diets and nutrition, inclusive and efficient food systems, institutions and governance, and rural transformation, all with attention to gender and the world’s most vulnerable people, with the goals of reducing poverty and ending hunger and malnutrition.

Agricultural mechanization policy options in Rwanda

This paper summarizes general demand- and supply-side issues for agricultural mechanization based on recent studies that focus on experiences and evidence from both Africa and Asia. The paper pro vides typologies of agricultural mechanization in Rwanda along with policy options within the context of its current mechanization support strategies. Provincial variations in agroecology and cropping systems, irrigated/rainfed systems, farm size, and labor use intensity, among other factors, characterize the key types of mechanization use in Rwanda. Support for mechanization in Rwanda can be broadly tailored to (a) irrigated medium-scale farmers in the Eastern province and Kigali; (b) rainfed medium-scale farmers in the Eastern and Southern provinces; (c) rainfed, small-scale highland farmers in the Northern province; and (d) irrigated small-scale farmers in the Western province. Recent experiences in other countries with rugged terrain and smallholder farming systems similar to Rwanda suggest that significant growth in the use of tractors is possible in the medium term among smallholders cultivating rainfed maize and legumes, in addition to irrigated rice. However, farm wages may still be too low in Rwanda and tractor-hiring fees may still be too high to induce a shift to mechanization in the short term. Therefore, it may be advisable for policy support for mechanization to focus on improving the understanding of mechanization needs among each type of farmers identified, knowledge of suitable machines, and required skills for their operations and maintenance. Such efforts should also balance the need to develop competitive markets and supply networks for promising machines, parts, and repair services at a viable and integrated market scale.

Using climate financing wisely to address multiple crises

A convergence of several risk drivers creates the compound crises we see across the globe today. At the same time, the global humanitarian community and national institutions in affected countries are increasingly resource constrained. In this context, existing financing mechanisms should be evaluated for their potential to create synergies between social protection, peace, and inclusion objectives on the one hand and climate resilience outcomes on the other. The existing international architecture of climate change mitigation and adaptation policy and financing holds, in principle, the potential to address not only its main purpose of climate action, but also to contribute to development outcomes and address multiple risk drivers. Examples of this exist, but for these mutual benefits to emerge, and for climate finance to contribute more significantly to crises prevention, the agendas must become more aligned. Aligning several factors may enable coherence: i) Timeframes, from short-term response to multi-year programming; ii) Planning and targeting, moving towards conflict-sensitive area-based approaches and universal access to services; iii) Institutional arrangements and partnerships, coordinated national planning and jointly implemented local action.

From promises to action: Analyzing global commitments on food security and diets since 2015

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2), Zero Hunger, by 2030 is in jeopardy due to slowing and unequal economic growth, climate shocks, the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, lackluster efforts toward investing in food system sustainability and agricultural productivity growth, and persistent barriers to open food trade. Nevertheless, numerous commitments to achieving SDG 2 have been repeatedly expressed by Heads of State and Ministers at diverse global meetings since the SDGs became a focus in 2015. To identify the intensity and degree of convergence of commitments that national governments have collectively made to realizing SDG 2, this paper provides a qualitative assessment of statements from more than 68 global meetings and 107 intergovernmental commitment documents since 2015. Analyzing these commitments against seven critical factors necessary for impact at scale, we find that stated intentions to solve the global food security and hunger challenge have become more pronounced at global meetings over time, especially in the wake of the crises. However, the intent to act is not consistently matched by commitments to specific actions that could help accelerate reductions in hunger. For instance, while increased financing is often recognized as a priority to reach SDG 2, few commitments in global fora relate to detailed costing of required investments. Similarly, many commitment statements lack specificity regarding what and how policy interventions should be scaled up for greater action on SDG 2 or the ways to enhance different stakeholders’ capacities to implement them. While horizontal coherence was mentioned across most global fora, it was only present in about half of the commitment statements, with even less recognition of the necessity for vertical coherence from global to local levels. Despite global acknowledgement of the importance of accountability and monitoring, usually by way of progress reports, we find few consequences for governments that do not act on commitments made in global fora. We discuss the implications of these findings and offer recommendations for how to strengthen the commitment-making process to help accelerate actions that can reduce food insecurity and hunger and augment the legitimacy of global meetings. This work can inform the policy advocacy community focused on SDG 2 and those engaged in catalyzing and supporting intergovernmental action on other SDGs. Our findings reiterate the importance of attention to global governance and the political economy of global meetings—which is necessary to strengthen our focus on delivering outcomes that put the world on a path that brings the solution to the problems of global hunger and food insecurity within reach.

Double-booked: Effects of overlap between school and farming calendars on education and child labor

Overlap between school and farming calendars—pervasive in agrarian settings—constrains children’s time for both activities, potentially forcing trade-offs between schooling and child labor. Using shift-share estimation, I study an exogenous shift to overlap between school and crop calendars in Malawi, weighted and aggregated by communities’ pre-policy crop shares, matched to panel data on school-aged children. From pre- to post-policy, a five-day (i.e., one school-week) increase in overlap during peak farming periods decreases children’s school advancement by 0.14 grades—one lost grade for every seven children—while only resulting in 3.9 percent fewer children working on the household-farm. Policy simulations show how adapting the school calendar to minimize overlap with peak farming periods can be an effective strategy to increase school participation.

Stakeholder mapping for climate change action in Tajikistan

Central Asia is highly vulnerable to climate change threats, which have negatively impacted both humans and wildlife. Tajikistan, one of the least urbanized countries in the region, is prone to natural disasters, disruptions in rainfall, growing temperatures, reductions in glacial cover, and extreme weather events (Zoï Environment Network 2020; Green Climate Fund [GCF] 2020). The Government of the Republic of Tajikistan acknowledges the problems and risks posed by climate change and is working toward ad dressing them to meet the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focused on climate change and environmental concerns. One critical step in this direction is the submission of its updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2021, which states the country’s proposed efforts to support sustainable and efficient development, taking into consideration climate change, environmen tal, and socioeconomic challenges for the period 2020–2030 (Government of the Republic of Tajikistan 2021). Weak institutional capacity and lack of efficient vertical and horizontal coordination between mul tiple stakeholders could undermine the possibility of undertaking integrated climate change actions, how ever. Thus, given the interconnected and multistakeholder nature of climate change issues, the first step is to identify all relevant stakeholders. This effort must be accompanied by an understanding of how the country’s multisectoral climate change issues are being addressed through the policy system and na tional and regional institutions and how development partners support these efforts (Clar and Steurer 2019). In this paper, we map institutions, stakeholders, and relevant policies that support NDC implementa tion in Tajikistan and understand their specific roles and responsibilities and related interlinkages. The key impact objective of this paper is to create a knowledge product that helps strengthen vertical and horizontal coordination between institutions working on climate change issues in Tajikistan.

Transfers, nutrition programming, and economic well-being: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Many cash transfer programs include complementary nutrition training, with the aim of encouraging households to use transfer resources toward improving child nutrition. Evidence indicates that these bundled programs, if intensive and well-implemented, can be effective in improving child nutritional status. However, little is known about how adding nutrition training to transfer programs affects their economic impacts. In particular, few studies have assessed whether nutrition programming may induce reallocation of transfer resources from physical capital to human capital. Scarce evidence also exists as to whether these tradeoffs depend on the transfer modality. We study a pilot program called the Transfer Modality Research Initiative in Bangladesh (TMRI), designed as a randomized controlled trial. TMRI provided cash or food transfers, with or without intensive group-based nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), to mothers of young children in poor rural households. We find that adding nutrition BCC to cash or food transfers leads to larger impacts on both consumption and assets – potentially surprising, given that the transfer value is unchanged. Analysis of mechanisms suggests that these effects occur through the BCC inducing increases in income generation, through investments in livelihoods. Suggestive evidence indicates that the effects of TMRI’s BCC are plausibly due to the intensive group-based format, which increased social capital for participant women and their household members, as well as improved participant women’s agency and self-confidence, knowledge, and input into household decisions. Results indicate that adding nutrition BCC to cash or food transfer programs do not necessarily induce a tradeoff between investing in human capital versus physical capital, but can rather strengthen impacts on both if appropriately designed.

A conceptual framework of living labs for people for sustainable food systems

Innovation spaces are often dominated by linear, top-down approaches, with the transfer of technology being seen as the solution to many problems rather than trying to understand which innovation processes people are engaging with themselves. In other words, barriers to progress are typically viewed as issues of technology adoption, not as part of the innovation process itself. This study contributes to changing the paradigm by proposing a living lab approach, which considers innovation as an adaptive process where stakeholders co-produce knowledge and collaborate based on inclusivity and empowerment. Our specific concept for this approach is called a Living Lab for People (LL4P). This conceptual paper outlines a framework to guide the development of a LL4P that remains flexible to be adapted for specific sites. While we seek to identify common denominators, we recognize the necessity for such a framework to remain open enough to be adaptable for varied contexts. Consequently, the framework draws on the living lab literature but tailors existing approaches for sustainable food system transformation and puts people (men, women, and marginalized groups among key food system actors) at the center of innovation processes with a clear intention to address power and social inequity. We draw on specific cases in China, Colombia, Kenya and Vietnam as learning grounds for formulating LL4Ps through locally led innovation processes. Based on our learnings and consultations, we define a LL4P as an inclusive and diverse space for people to advance their socio-technical innovation processes and associated modes of governance within a facilitated organizational structure. The principles of LL4Ps include co-production, gender equality and social inclusion, governance and institutional sustainability to advance existing and novel innovation processes. The practical experiences from applying this framework in the four case studies indicate alternative pathways for transforming the food system toward a sustainable and socially equitable trajectory through the establishment of a LL4P.

Lump-sum transfers for agriculture, support services, and household decision making

We study the impact of one-season transfers framed for agricultural investment combined with agricultural support services on decision making among smallholder households in Senegal and Malawi using data from randomized control trials. In Senegal, we find evidence that the program increased the decision power of male household heads at the expense of other males in the household after two years. We cannot disentangle the impacts of the farm planning program and the lump sum transfer that comprised that program. In Malawi, we observe that over two years male program recipients exhibit increased decisionmaking power, while male non-recipients see reductions in decision-making power. These results are broadly due to both the transfers and the intensive agricultural support services. Changes in decision power seem to flow not just from control of income, but also from shifting household norms linked to program participation. Only in Malawi do we note some suggestive evidence that decision making power increases among female program recipients.

Understanding intra-household food allocation rules: Evidence from a randomized social safety net intervention in Bangladesh

Evidence shows social protection can improve diets, but little is understood about how effects vary within a household or what factors determine how food is allocated across different household members. We use individual food intake data from two randomized control trials to estimate intrahousehold dietary impacts of cash or food transfers, with or without nutrition behavior change communication (BCC), in two regions of Bangladesh. We assess whether intrahousehold impacts 1) are consistent with different allocation "rules" hypothesized in the literature, 2) differ by transfer modality, provision of BCC, or regional context. Results indicate that households distribute food equally among their members (men, women, boys, and girls), both in absolute terms and in proportion to individual-specific requirements and deficits. Patterns are similar across regions and do not depend on transfer modality or whether BCC is provided. Findings have implications for designing nutrition-sensitive social protection with different target groups prioritized.

Nutrition-sensitive food distribution amidst inflationary shock: Evidence from a randomized intervention in Egypt

We evaluate the impacts of a traditional food distribution and a nutrition-sensitive food distribution intervention in the context of a rapidly increasing inflationary pressure in Egypt. Besides evaluating the relative and absolute impacts of these interventions on household food and nutrition security, we also examine their impacts on households’ preferences for in-kind versus cash transfers. We implement a clustered randomized control trial through which we randomly assigned communities into: (i) “nutrition-sensitive” food box, (ii) traditional “staple-heavy” food box, and (iii) control group. We find that the nutrition-sensitive food distribution cushioned falls in dietary quality and food security of targeted households relative to the control group while the impact of the traditional and staple-heavy food distribution appears to be negligible. The nutrition-sensitive food boxes increased beneficiary households’ dietary diversity by about 9 percent while also increasing energy, protein, and iron intake by 12, 13, and 19 percent, respectively. We also find that experience with the food boxes increases households’ preference for in-kind transfers, more so among households experiencing high inflation rates and among those households not covered by other food and cash transfer programs. Receiving food boxes increases preference for in-kind transfer by about 9-11 percentage points. Our findings have important implications for the debate on the efficacy of alternative interventions to support poor households as food prices rise and the relative efficacy of in-kind and cash-transfers. The lack of effectiveness of the staple-heavy food boxes suggests that the design and content of in-kind transfers are crucial when considering this policy option, including compared to cash.

Impact evaluation report of Egypt’s Forsa Graduation Program

1. Forsa, which means “Opportunity” in Arabic, is a new economic inclusion program of the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS), one major goal of the program is to graduate beneficiaries of Takaful to economic self reliance by enabling them to engage in wage employment or small-scale productive enterprises. 2. The Forsa program began in 2023, after significant delays. Obstacles to implementation in cluded the Covid-19 pandemic, nationwide inflation subsequent to the Ukraine-Russia war result ing in funding challenges for asset purchases, and administrative challenges with procurement approvals by the Ministry of Finance. Forsa implementation was conducted under MoSS super vision by local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While a few NGOs received their first payments in the first quarter of 2022, most NGOs received their first payments in October 2022, delaying program implementation to February 2023. According to the MoSS, in the second half of 2023, households receiving assets through the program increased from around 3,000 (9%) to 10,302 (29%) out of a target of 35,000 households through 49 contracted NGOs and two private hiring firms, and the number of participants receiving a job has increased from 3,324 (23%) in August to 5,392 (38%) by end of November of 2023 out of a target of 14,314 households through 22 NGOs and two private firms.

Proceedings of the Provincial Consultation Workshop on Food and Agriculture System Transformation in Nepal

The United States Government’s (USG) Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) is an integrated whole-of-government approach that aims to end global hunger, poverty, and malnutrition through the Feed the Future initiative. Launched in 2010 across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Feed the Future aims to stimulate agriculture-led growth, resilience, and nutrition in countries with significant needs and opportunities for improvement. Through partnerships that invest in agriculture, build resilience, and improve nutrition, the USG has provided the basic dignity of food to millions of families worldwide. This initiative has delivered impressive results, including an estimated 23.4 million people lifted to above the poverty line, 3.4 million children no longer stunted, and an estimated 5.2 million families overcoming hunger. Additionally, Feed the Future has unlocked $3.5 billion in financing for food security (2011–2019), generated $13.7 billion in agricultural sales, and developed and deployed over 1,000 innovations. However, the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, climate change, and international conflicts have significantly hampered the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a result, the USG has developed the Global Food Security Strategy Refresh (GFSS-R) 2022–2026 that emphasizes the following five new areas of focus: 1. Equity and inclusion 2. An ambitious approach to climate change 3. Countering the long-term impacts of COVID-19 4. Employing systems thinking and working across the food system 5. Integration of conflict management, peacebuilding, and social cohesion This strategy refresh has significant implications for the Feed the Future initiative; therefore, all Feed the Future countries have now embarked on refreshing the country strategy to incorporate new programs and initiatives aligning with the GFSS-R. The strategy involves implementing a multi-faceted whole-of-government approach, assignment of ownership, and empowerment of country leadership to lead and guide the efforts for progress. The strategy refresh invokes partnership with a wide range of stakeholders, and harnesses the advancement of science, technology, and innovation to achieve these objectives. The Feed the Future interventions in Nepal ensured a very close partnership with the Government of Nepal and emphasized greater involvement of the private sector. Nepal is one of the oldest and most successful Feed the Future countries. Although efforts have been made to ensure food security in Nepal, the country still faces nutritional deficiency. Agricultural productivity in Nepal is comparatively low, and most of the farmers are still engaged in subsistence farming. Further, Nepal is highly vulnerable to climate change, natural disasters, pests, and diseases, exacerbating food insecurity leading to the prevalence of nutrition deficiencies, especially among marginalized populations who rely heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods. The USAID mission in Nepal commissioned the IFPRI to support the drafting of the new GFSS Nepal Country Plan. In this regard, provincial consultation workshop has been planned in collaboration with IIDS to generate constructive ideas and feedback on the past and existing interventions implemented in Nepal under Feed the Future and identify a way forward for strengthening and leveraging food and agriculture system transformation in Nepal.

Gender and food systems: Avenues for transformation?

Worldwide, approximately 1.23 billion people are employed in agrifood systems, and 3.83 billion live in households that are linked to or reliant on these systems in some way (Davis et al. 2023). In Africa, experts estimate that between two-thirds and four-fifths of all jobs are in agrifood systems; nonagricultural agrifood system jobs account for only a small portion of this employment and are mainly concentrated in urban areas (Davis et al. 2023). Population growth and rapid urbanization, the growing risks of climate change, and persistent problems of malnutrition all mean that rural and urban African agrifood systems need to transform both substantially and rapidly to achieve the goals of sustainable, equitable, and healthy food systems.

Can a light-touch graduation model enhance livelihood outcomes? Evidence from Ethiopia

In recent years, a growing literature has examined the potential of multifaceted, intensive “graduation model” interventions that simultaneously address multiple barriers constraining households’ exit from poverty. In this paper, we present new evidence from a randomized trial of a lighter-touch graduation model implemented in rural Ethiopia. The primary experimental arms are a bundled intervention including a productive transfer valued at $374 (randomly assigned to be cash or an equivalent value in poultry), training, and savings groups; a simpler intervention including training and savings groups only; and a control arm. We find that three years post-baseline, the intervention inclusive of the transfer leads to some increases in assets, savings, and cash income from livestock, though there is no shift in consumption or household food security; these effects are consistent regardless of the modality of the transfer (cash versus poultry). The effects of training and savings groups alone are minimal.

The political economy of reforming agricultural support policies

In both developed and developing countries, agricultural support policies provide enormous transfers of resources to agriculture—about US$817 billion per year worldwide in the 2019–2021 period (OECD 2022).¹ Some agricultural support policies, such as input subsidies, have boosted global food production, particularly of staple crops, thereby reducing hunger and poverty. Yet, there are serious concerns about their impacts on achieving sustainable, healthy, and inclusive food systems. Redirecting or “repurposing” agricultural subsidies toward investments that support both increased production and greater sustainability—such as agricultural research and development (R&D) and rural infrastructure—has the potential for win-win-win gains for people, planet, and prosperity. This chapter first considers how shifts in agricultural support would affect global efforts to promote healthy, inclusive, and sustainable food system transformation. Since such reforms are contingent on political economy considerations, the chapter subsequently presents a framework for analyzing how interests, institutions, ideas and information, and policy characteristics intersect to facilitate or stymie reform efforts. Case studies of attempted reforms from different regions are presented that highlight the relevance of the framework. The chapter concludes by summarizing some potentially enabling political economy conditions for repurposing agricultural support policies.

Introduction: Political economy of food system transformation

In August 2022, the Razoni cargo ship, laden with 26,000 tons of grain, navigated a narrow corridor of mined waters outside Ukraine’s port of Odessa. After Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine exacerbated rising food prices, threatening to plunge millions into hunger, the Razoni was the first ship allowed out of Ukraine under the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative. The ship’s journey symbolized the world’s dependence on grain from the Black Sea—which supplies 30 percent of the world’s wheat exports and constitutes the source of 12 percent of glob ally traded calories (Glauber and Laborde 2022)—and revealed the vulnerability of countries to dependence on concentrated supply sources (IPES 2022). More over, it underscored that food security and food systems are rarely the byproduct of agriculture policy alone but often intertwined with a broad set of political objectives. The impacts of the Ukraine war reverberated far and wide in 2022, amplifying weaknesses in many countries’ agricultural and food strategies and generating citizen demands for government accountability. From massive food protests in Tunisia that threatened the country’s fragile democracy to the siege of Ecuadorean cities by indigenous groups demanding more affordable food, global unrest reminded the world of the centrality of political economy to food systems at the international, national, and local levels.

The political economy of food system transformation: Pathways to progress in a polarized world

The current structure of the global food system is increasingly recognized as unsustainable. In addition to the environmental impacts of agricultural production, unequal patterns of food access and availability are contributing to non-communicable diseases in middle- and high-income countries and inadequate caloric intake and dietary diversity among the world’s poorest. While the need to transform food systems is widely accepted, the policy pathways for achieving such a vision often are highly contested, and the enabling conditions for implementation are frequently absent. Moreover, transformation implicitly requires reforms that depart from the status quo, which will generate resistance from those groups that stand to lose the most.

These dynamics are examined in detail in a new book co-edited by Danielle Resnick and Johan Swinnen on The Political Economy of Food System Transformation: Pathways to Progress in a Polarized World, published jointly by IFPRI and Oxford University Press. The book emphasizes that the viability of reforms requires joint consideration of both the complexity of local, national, and global food systems and the increasingly polarized political and institutional contexts in which food policy decision-making occurs. In recent decades, food systems have encompassed a broader range of non-traditional stakeholders, including insurance companies, banks, technology firms, and transnational civil society advocates. Moreover, food systems are no longer just responsible for generating sufficient calories but also are expected to meet a whole host of other objectives, including racial and gender justice, human rights, and the preservation of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Yet, not only are food systems changing but so are politics; a wave of populism over the last decade has caused misinformation and ideological bias to compete with rigorous analysis when informing policy recommendations. Polarization at the national level is also reflected in the geopolitical sphere and exacerbated in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A perceived crisis of multilateralism makes it difficult to coordinate on cross-national issues, such as climate change and trade, while the rise of multi-stakeholderism in global convenings like the United Nations Food Systems Summit obscures who is ultimately obligated and accountable for food system actions.

Given these complexities, how do we achieve action? To address this question, this book draws on scholarship from a global set of authors whose disciplines span economics, political science, nutrition, ecology, geography, and public policy. Their contributions, which draw on diverse methodologies, analyze binding constraints to reform and showcase factors that have led to progressive change in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. The substantive areas of political economy focus include, among others, repurposing agricultural subsidies, reducing red meat and ultra-processed food consumption, increasing uptake of appropriate biotechnologies, adopting sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, implementing the European Union’s Farm to Fork Strategy, adapting urban food system councils to the Global South, and tracking accountability for global food system commitments. In doing so, the authors highlight the necessity of navigating incentive structures, identifying strategies and opportunities for mobilization, and finding innovative policy designs that broaden coalitions for change.

This page also includes a synopsis:
Resnick, Danielle, ed.; and Swinnen, Johan, ed. 2023. The political economy of food system transformation: Pathways to progress in a polarized world: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294585

Political and economic drivers of Sudan's armed conflict: Implications for the agri-food system

This study assesses the political economy of the conflict between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that brought out in April 2023, resulting in massive violence, displacement, and threats to food security. Based on a series of key informant interviews and other secondary materials, this study identifies that the primary underlying driver of the conflict relates to the rise of competition between the SAF and RSF over productive resources, including within the agri-food system. This scenario has been facilitated by a longstanding lack of scrutiny, accountability, and transparency over the distribution of economic rents and commercial holdings between the two factions. Additionally, the capture of rents from different industries and resources has been a key contributor to the geographic expansion of the conflict. As the conflict continues to rage between the two groups and their associates, it continues to impose considerable impacts on different actors within the agri-food system, posing significant challenges to the planting season and crop production, introducing blockades of trade routes, and a near cessation of agro-processing. We discuss these aspects of the ensuing conflict in view of the uncertainty about political and economic developments and propose policy recommendations for rebuilding Sudan’s agri-food system holistically under different scenarios.

Addressing irregular migration through principled programmatic approaches: Examining the West Africa route and WFP operations

This is a joint IFPRI-WFP study on the drivers, profile, and risks of irregular migration in the West Africa context. By taking a route-based approach to irregular migration in West Africa, the study examined migrants’ origins, their transit experience, and the situation where their journey stalls or ends. Drawing on a mixed methods approach the study includes case studies in Mali and Libya, representing an analysis of the migration route of the Ténéré desert crossing of the south-central Sahara. The overall analysis features the profiles of irregular migrants and the primary factors influencing their migration decisions. It also examines links between food insecurity and irregular migration to understand the risks and address the needs of this increasingly vulnerable population.

Seven principles for mobilizing open data to power India's Agri Stack

Digitalization is transforming existing agricultural business processes and services and enabling new means to deploy innovative services and products at scale. At the core of these services and innovations is open data. In India, Central and State Governments, academic, research institutions, and the private sector have done critical work in conceptualizing different approaches and aspects of an AgriStack to digitally transform agriculture. Recognizing the need to integrate these efforts and incorporate use cases, CGIAR Research Initiative on Digital Innovation, in partnership with The Agri Collaboratory (TAC), organized a consultation workshop in Delhi in November 2022. Participated by 70 stakeholders representing 54 organizations, the workshop enabled in-depth discussion on the design principles of thematic use cases and facilitated a broader debate on the specific building blocks needed. This document summarizes key principles discussed throughout the workshop.

Bangladeshi women’s experiences and vulnerabilities in Jordan’s garment sector

Jordan’s garment sector employs a large number of women migrants from South Asia who face various challenges and vulnerabilities in their work environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated some of these vulnerabilities, leading to income losses. However, little information is available about this migration corridor. This study implemented qualitative phone survey interviews with returnee women migrants in Bangladesh to identify interventions that the organizations, such as the International Labor Organization and other actors supporting women’s safe migration could undertake to reduce women’s vulnerabilities in migration. The study identified networks of discipline and power, the perception of appropriate behavior at work and beyond and racialization as key areas that mediate vulnerabilities of women. We recommend increasing awareness of conditions at Jordan’s garment sector as part of pre-departure training, which is supported by the main recruitment practice of garment workers through BOESL in the country. Awareness raising includes information on the role of the Al Hassan Workers’ Center as well as on the role of the embassy of Bangladesh in Jordan. A second recommendation is to translate contractual documents into Bengali so that women migrants can better understand work conditions, including salaries. The final recommendation focuses on the need to continue research on the uneven power dynamics in Jordan’s garment sector to support dismantling networks of discrimination and power and racialization of the work environment.

Agricultural extension in times of crisis and emergent threats: Effectiveness of a fall armyworm information intervention in Myanmar

Agricultural extension can have important impacts on vulnerable populations by increasing food production, which improves both rural incomes and urban food security. Yet, crises induced by violent conflict or disease outbreaks can sever the connections between extension agents and farmers. Understanding how agricultural extension systems can safely and effectively reach farmers in times of crisis could help stabilize agri-food systems in fragile states. In the context of COVID-19, a military coup, and an emergent threat of fall armyworm in Myanmar, this paper uses a randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of two cellphone-based extension interventions – a direct-to-farmer and a lead farmer intervention – for fall armyworm control in maize. Despite low compliance, both interventions caused knowledge improvements. However, damage control estimates show that the lead-farmer group used pesticides most effectively. Similar cellphone-based lead-farmer programs could be an effective tool in fragile states and when faced with emergent threats to agriculture.

Proceedings of the National Consultation Workshop on Food and Agriculture System Transformation in Nepal

The National Consultation Workshop on Food and Agriculture System Transformation in Nepal was held in Kathmandu, Nepal on May 18–19, 2023. The consultation was organized by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) with support from the United States Agency for International Development, Nepal (USAID/Nepal). This consultation was a part of generating insights / evidence for the United States Government’s (USG) Global Food Security Strategy-Refresh (GFSS-R) process. The US Government’s Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) is an integrated whole-of-government approach that aims to end global hunger, poverty, and malnutrition through Feed the Future (FtF) initiatives. Several innovations in food and agriculture sectors have been successfully implemented in Nepal, being one of the oldest and most successful Feed the Future countries. However, more remains to be done to ensure food security in the nation. Farmers are still reliant on subsistence farming, leading to low agricultural productivity in the country. Rapid feminization in agriculture, owing to high outmigration and impact of climate change and natural disasters, has further burdened the poor, women, and marginalized groups in achieving food security. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant negative impact on the country’s economy, thwarting the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This National Consultation Workshop was designed with an objective to inform the GFSS-R 2022– 2026, with emphasis on i) equity and inclusion, ii) an ambitious approach to climate change, iii) countering the long-term impacts of COVID-19, iv) employing system thinking and working across food systems, and v) integration of conflict management, peace-building, and social cohesion. The Whole System in the Room (WSR) approach was applied to facilitate the workshop with 116 participants representing government, non-government organizations (NGOs), private sectors, and farmers from the federal, provincial, and local levels. Discussions during the consultation workshop were mostly centered on the proposed five themes: (i) Risk and Resilience Capacity, (ii) Food Systems Innovations, (iii) Markets and Trade, (iv) Food Systems Outputs and Outcomes, and (v) Food System Governance and Control. Additional sub-themes were identified to capture the status of each of the themes, and to address their gaps and constraints along with recommendations required to transform the food and agriculture system of Nepal. The participants have proposed specific prioritized recommendations from the list that was generated from the consultation. The summary of these prioritized recommendations for all five themes is given below.

Social protection: Adaptive safety nets for crisis recovery

Over the past two decades, social protection programs have become a mainstream policy tool to address chronic poverty and food insecurity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Social safety net programs are one of the most common forms of social protection. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the number of social safety net programs has more than tripled since the early 2000s, and today each country in the region operates at least one such program. Evidence is mounting that social safety net programs and social protection more broadly can improve food security, reduce chronic poverty, and build household wealth (assets). Moreover, social safety net programs can improve nutritional outcomes, protect aspirations (people’s ability to visualize and engage in forward-looking activities) during natural disasters, and increase resilience in the face of climate change. Social safety net programs may even prevent local conflicts, increase trust in local governments, and stimulate economic growth by encouraging savings, addressing credit market imperfections, and creating communal assets. Finally, cash transfers, one form of safety net, have been found to improve women’s empowerment and even reduce the risk of intimate partner violence, particularly when coupled with complementary activities.

Global food policy report 2023: Rethinking food crisis responses

This decade has been marked by multiple, often overlapping, crises. The COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, and the ongoing war in Ukraine have all threatened the fabric of our global food systems. But opportunities can be found amid crises, and the world’s food systems have demonstrated surprising resilience. With new evidence on what works, now is the time to rethink how we address food crises. Better prediction, preparation, and resilience building can make future crises less common and less devastating, and improved responses can contribute to greater food security, better nutrition, and sustainable livelihoods.

This record also includes the following synopsis translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish:
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Global food policy report 2023: Rethinking food crisis responses: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294431

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Global food policy report 2023: Rethinking food crisis responses: Synopsis [in Arabic]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294462

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Global food policy report 2023: Rethinking food crisis responses: Synopsis [in Chinese]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294455

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Rapport 2023 sur les politiques alimentaires mondiales: Repenser les réponses aux crises alimentaires. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294448

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Informe de políticas alimentarias mundiales 2023: Repensar las respuestas a las crisis alimentarias. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294486

Is irrigation fit for purpose? A review of the relationships between scheme size and performance of irrigation systems

Irrigation is increasingly being called upon to help stabilize and grow food and water security in the face of multiple crises; these crises include climate change, but also recent global food and energy price crises, including the 2007/08 food and energy price crises, and the more recent crises triggered by the COVID 19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine. While irrigation development used to focus on public, large-scale, surface- and reservoir-fed systems, over the last several decades, private small-scale investments in groundwater irrigation have grown in importance and are expected to see rapid future growth, particularly in connection with solar-powered pumping systems. But is irrigation ‘fit-for-purpose’ to support population growth, economic development, and multiple food, energy and climate crises? This paper reviews how fit-for-purpose irrigation is with a focus on economies of scale of surface and groundwater systems, and a particular examination of systems in Sub-Saharan Africa where the need for expansion is largest. The review finds challenges for both larger surface and smaller groundwater systems in the face of growing demand for irrigated agriculture and dwindling and less reliable water supplies. To support resilience of the sector, we propose both a holistic design and management improvement agenda for larger surface systems, and a series of suggestions to improve sustainability concerns of groundwater systems

Food prices and the wages of the poor: A low-cost, high-value approach to high-frequency food security monitoring

International food prices have become increasingly volatile in recent decades, with “global food crises” in 2008, 2011 and most recently in 2022. The 2008 crisis prompted international agencies to ambitiously extend their monitoring of domestic food prices in developing countries to strengthen early warning systems and food and nutrition surveillance. However, food inflation by itself is not sufficient for measuring disposable income or food affordability; for that, one must measure either changes in income or changes in an income proxy. Here we propose the use of a low-cost income proxy that can be monitored at the same high frequency and spatial granularity as food prices: the wages of poor unskilled workers. While not all poor people are unskilled wage earners, changes in the real “reservation wages” of low skilled activities are likely to be highly predictive of changes in disposable income for poorer segments of society (Deaton and Dreze 2002). We demonstrate this by estimating changes in “food wages” – wages deflated food price indices – during well-documented food price crises in Ethiopia (2008, 2011 and 2022), Sri Lanka (2022) and Myanmar (2022). In all these instances, food wages declined by 20-30%, often in the space of a few months. Moreover, in Myanmar we use a household panel survey data to show that the decline in food wages over the course of 2022 closely matches estimate declines in household disposable income and proportional increases in income-based poverty. We argue that the affordability of nutritious food for “all people, at all times” is a critically important dimension of food security, and we advocate for monitoring the wages of the poor as a cheap and accurate means of capturing that dimension.

Impact evaluation of the SHARPE Programme in Ethiopia: Academic report

The Strengthening Host and Refugee Populations in Ethiopia (SHARPE) programme uses a market systems development approach to promote increased self-reliance and economic opportunities for refugees and host communities through the piloting and scaling of interventions across different sectors. This approach is based upon understanding the economic barriers that refugee and host communities face, and working with key stakeholders – including businesses, government, and service providers - to improve market function for people in these regions. This report focuses on evaluating the impacts of investments SHARPE has made in the financial market system, which have focused on developing markets for digital financial services in refugee hosting areas. A highlight of the evaluation are two co-developed randomized control trials, designed to help SHARPE and its partners overcome constraints found while implementing the programme. The report finds evidence that robust markets for digital financial services are emerging in refugee hosting areas near Jijiga and are a little farther behind in Dollo Ado. Enrolment in the mobile money product, HelloCash, has been quite robust, though lower among women and refugees. HelloCash users are more likely to report financial inclusion (beyond inclusion through Hello Cash); they are 8.8 percentage points more likely to report being self-employed; they are 6.1 percentage points more likely to report typically having enough income; and they appear less food insecure than non-users. To try to enrol more women and refugees and catalyse HelloCash use among those groups, we conducted two randomized trials, one which allowed high volume customers to refer customers and receive a small bonus for doing so, and one which provided inactive customers with small incentives to start using the system. The former trial led to increased enrolment, but the share of women and refugees enrolling did not change; the latter led to increased use among women, but not refugees. We conclude with some ideas about further experiments to catalyse more use among refugees.

Mitigating poverty and undernutrition through social protection: A simulation analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and Myanmar

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe income losses, but little is known about its impacts on diets and nutritional adequacy, or the effectiveness of social protection interventions in mitigating dietary and nutritional impacts. We first assess the likely impacts of COVID-19 shocks in Bangladesh and Myanmar on poverty and food and nutrient consumption gaps. We then analyze the estimated mitigating effects of five hypothetical social protection interventions of a typical monetary value: (1) cash transfers; (2) in-kind transfers of common rice; (3) in-kind transfers of fortified rice enriched with multiple essential micronutrients; (4) vouchers for a diversified basket of rice and non-staple foods; and (5) food vouchers with fortified rice instead of common rice. The simulation results suggest modest effectiveness of the cash transfers for mitigating poverty increases and little effectiveness of all five transfers for preventing increasing food and nutrient consumption gaps among the poorest 40%. Rice fortification is, however, effective at closing key micronutrient consumption gaps and could be a suitable policy instrument for averting ‘hidden hunger’ during economic crises.

Dietary quality and nutrition in Myanmar: Past progress, current and future challenges

In the decade prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Myanmar was in the midst of a dietary transition driven by rapid economic growth and urbanization. In this study, we first use national survey data to compare household diets in 2015 to the healthy diet recommendations of food-based dietary guidelines adapted for Myanmar, as well as estimated nutrient consumption relative to recommended intakes. We use these food group and nutrient consumption gaps to estimate a new measure of multidimensional dietary deprivation developed by Pauw et al. (2022), and a novel extension of that index to nutrient deprivation. Both deprivation indices are strongly negatively correlated with total household expenditure. We then use food demand estimation to estimate income and own price elasticities, which reveal strong preferences for animal-sourced foods, but weaker preferences for vegetables and pulses. Expenditure data also point to strong demand for oils/fats – a problem observed throughout developing Asia (Pingali and Abraham 2022) – and for food away from home, which partially explains the rising burden of overweight/obesity in Myanmar. Moreover, since most nutrient-dense foods are income- and price-elastic, estimated income elasticities suggest that recent declines in household income and increases in food prices in Myanmar will result in declining dietary diversity. We show that this is indeed the case utilizing household phone surveys conducted in recent years. We first use a food vendor survey to show that the cost of a healthy diet increased by 61 percent between September 2021 and September 2022. Next, we analyze a rural Dry Zone panel survey implemented 10 times over 2020-2021 and find that maternal and child dietary diversity both declined significantly as Myanmar’s economic situation deteriorated. Then, in a nationally representative phone survey conducted quarterly in 2022 over a period of rapid food inflation, we find further deterioration in diet quality among adults, but no deterioration among children 6-23 months of age, suggesting parents may be trying to insulate their children from the worst effects of the crisis. Finally, we conclude the paper by discussing policy and program options in very difficult political circumstances. Malnutrition is a multidimensional problem requiring multisectoral solutions, but at present the breakdown in the provision of even basic services makes significant progress highly unlikely, and reversing the recent deterioration in dietary quality and nutrition will surely require resolution of Myanmar’s political crisis. In the interim, we discuss three potentially effective types of interventions: (1) rice fortification to reduce micronutrient deficiencies; (2) homestead food production to improve dietary quality in farm households and rural and peri-urban communities; and (3) nutrition-sensitive social protection for vulnerable mothers and young children, with transfers ideally accompanied by nutrition education interventions.

Diets of men and women in rural Bangladesh are equitable but suboptimal

Background: Recent evidence suggests that diet inequities between men and women may have diminished within rural Bangladeshi households. However, this has not been directly tested with appropriate physiologic adjustments and it is unclear whether changes have occurred across socioeconomic strata. Understanding intrahousehold dietary patterns at different points on the income and food-security distribution in rural Bangladesh—particularly, within ultrapoor and farm households—is important for appropriate design of gender-sensitive and nutrition-sensitive interventions, which often target these groups.
Objective: Using 2012 and 2016 data, we aimed to examine gender differences in diet quantity and quality among ultrapoor and farm households in rural Bangladesh.
Methods: The study used baseline 24-h dietary data from 2 randomized control trials conducted in rural Bangladesh: the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (ultrapoor households) and the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages project (farm households). Ordinary least squares regressions with household-level fixed effects tested for gender differences among constructed diet measures, such as caloric intake, caloric adequacy ratio, dietary diversity score, global diet quality score, and probability of consuming moderate or high levels of healthy food groups.
Results: In both samples, on average, women consumed fewer calories than men in the same households but consumed near equal or more in reference to their caloric needs. Women scored <1% lower than men on diet quality indicators and showed similar probabilities to men of consuming healthy foods. Most men and women in both samples were calorically inadequate (>60%) and recorded poor diet quality scores that indicated high risk of nutrient inadequacy and chronic disease (>95%).
Conclusions: In both ultrapoor and farm households, although men record higher intake quantities and diet quality scores, the apparent male advantage disappear when energy requirements and the magnitudes of difference are considered. Diets of men and women in these rural Bangladeshi households are equitable but suboptimal.

Take-home rations in the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS): Study of coverage and uptake in Tamil Nadu

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a flagship program of the Government of India, offers nutrition services to support child development. One major component of ICDS is the Supplementary Nutrition Program (SNP), which provides take-home rations for all children under 6 years of age and pregnant and lactating women to bridge the calorie and protein gaps in their diets. Current SNP guidelines recommend providing the rations in the form of micronutrient-fortified food or energy-dense food to bridge the nutrient gap between the Recommend Dietary Allowance and Average Daily Intake (MoWCD 2014). In Tamil Nadu, the take-home rations are a fortified-blended product called Sathumaavu. Coverage of take-home rations in Tamil Nadu is above the national average for all beneficiary groups, but variability across districts is high (IIPS and ICF 2021). Little is known about household use of Sathumaavu, perceptions of its quality, or its integration into standard diets. This study, a collaboration between LEAD at Krea University and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) with the Government of Tamil Nadu, explored the uptake and use of Sathumaavu among women and children across the state. The study aimed to: • Assess the uptake and use of the ICDS-provided Sathumaavu in Tamil Nadu• Examine demand- and supply-side factors related to the coverage and use of Sathumaavu

Scoping Study on Ethiopian Sesame Value Chain

The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is the largest non-profit public agricultural research group globally. Recently, it has restructured itself into One-CGIAR with the intention of integrating its capabilities, knowledge, assets, people, and global presence for a new era of intercon nected and partnership-driven research towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One-CGIAR led the development of about 30 initiatives that aimed at addressing one more of the key impact areas of SDGs. One of these initiatives is “Rethinking Food Markets and Value Chains for Inclu sion and Sustainability,” referred to as rethinking markets in short. Rethinking Markets Initiative aims to provide evidence on what types of bundled innovations, incentive structures, and policies are most effec tive for creating more equitable sharing of income and employment opportunities in growing food markets, while reducing the food sector’s environmental footprint. The initiative has four work packages addressing different but interrelated issues and that are being implemented in one or more countries. Work Package 1 (WP1) is about making globally integrated value chains inclusive, efficient, and environmentally sustainable.

The political economy of reforming agricultural support policies

Agricultural support policies cost more than US$800 billion per year in transfers to the farm sector worldwide. Support policies based on subsidies and trade barriers are highly distortive to markets and are also regressive as most support is provided to larger farmers. On balance, the incentives this support creates appear to increase greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. In addition, some subsidies undermine the production of more nutrient-dense commodities that are otherwise critical for the improvement of dietary outcomes. This paper first highlights that better outcomes could be achieved if even a small portion of agricultural subsidies were repurposed into investments in research and development (R&D) dedicated to productivity-enhancing and emission-reducing technologies. This would create multiple wins — mitigating global climate change, reducing poverty, increasing food security, and improving nutrition. Nonetheless, the political economy challenges to doing so are sizeable. Because current support policies are often politically popular and serve well-organized interests, reform is difficult without committed political leadership and multilateral collaboration. Using several case studies of both successful and failed changes of agricultural support policies in China, India, and the EU and the United States, we highlight lessons learned about the political economy constraints on and possibilities for reform.

Innovations and policy design for development for cross-value chain services (logistics and financial services)

WP3 intends to address the question: How can cross-food value chain and market services function better to increase employment and boost income of smallholders and SMEs? The WP focuses on two types of cross-value chain services, logistics and financial services. (1) logistics services – supply chain management, transportation, traceability, digital platforms for e-com merce, and (cold) storage. (2) value-chain financial services – mainly focusing on digital financial services (DFS) that facilitate trans actions, savings, access to and use of credit, and insurance. The logistics services in agri-food systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are often targeted at large-scale enterprises with greater market power and less accessible to smallholder farmers and small and micro enterprises (SMEs). WP3 aims to assess the ways in which these emerging logistics services (including digital platforms) can be cost-effectively targeted at smallholder farmers and agri-food SMEs. Regarding DFS, the WP will investigate cost-effective ways of improving access to and adoption of DFS among smallholders and agri-food SMEs, especially among women and youth. Though these emerging DFS appear to have a high potential to benefit smallholders and SMEs across the agri-food value chains in LMICs, they need a reliable internet connection, a suitable mobile phone network, and a broad network of mobile money agents to be effective. WP3 thus aims to identify innovations/emerging logistics and DFS and test their effectiveness to smallholders and SMEs using randomized control trials (RCTs) in pilots, with the goal of country-specific scalable designs.

Impact evaluation report: Egypt’s Forsa graduation program

Forsa, which means “Opportunity” in Arabic, is a new economic inclusion program of the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, the program aims to graduate beneficiaries of the national cash transfer program, the Takaful & Karama Program (TKP), to economic self-reliance by enabling them to engage in wage employment or sustainable economic enterprises. The 2021 World Bank Economic Inclusion report (Andrews et al. 2021) highlights a recent increase globally in such graduation or economic inclusion programs, which now reaches around 92 million beneficiaries from 20 million households across more than 75 countries. This rapid growth has necessitated an increasing demand for evidence on best practices in graduation program implementation. The newly designed Forsa program is based on the graduation approach, but with innovations drawing from theories of behavioral economics as well as creating a network of active youth volunteers for economic empowerment to reduce costs compared to the standard BRAC-inspired model. Forsa also expands the graduation model to include the option of wage-employment, rather than only focusing on self-employment. Evidence on the impact of job training programs linked to wage employment on both job retention and future earnings is mixed (McKenzie 2017), although most such programs do not include cash assistance. This impact evaluation of the Forsa program in Egypt is intended to contribute to the global evidence on effective graduation program design as well as provide immediate policy-relevant guidance for the Ministry of Social Solidarity. The impact evaluation will measure the degree to which Forsa is successful at increasing household consumption and will investigate which participant groups and program features demonstrate the greatest improvements in household welfare and economic activity.

Does relative deprivation condition the effects of social protection programs on political support? Experimental evidence from Pakistan

2022 UPDATE: Could perceived relative economic standing affect citizens’ support for political leaders and institutions? We explore this question by examining Pakistan’s national unconditional cash transfer program, the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). Leveraging a regression discontinuity approach using BISP’s administrative data and an original survey experiment, we find that perceptions of relative deprivation color citizen reactions to social protection. When citizens do not feel relatively deprived, receiving cash transfers has little sustained effect on individuals’ reported level of support for their political system and its leaders. However, when citizens feel relatively worse off, those receiving cash transfers become more politically satisfied, while those denied transfers become more politically disgruntled. Moreover, the magnitude of the reduction in political support among non-beneficiaries is larger than the magnitude of the increase in political support among beneficiaries. This has important implications for our understanding of the political ramifications of rising perceived inequality.

2019 Abstract: Why might citizens fail to reward incumbents for providing private goods? While extant literature on the political consequences of targeted government welfare programs has focused on attribution challenges and low levels of civic education and engagement, we offer an additional explanation related to perceived inequality, or the feeling that one is poor relative to other citizens. Leveraging a regression discontinuity design and a survey experiment, we identify the causal effects of a large cash transfer program in Pakistan when relative deprivation is and is not pronounced. When relative deprivation is not salient, we find that cash transfers have little effect on attitudes toward government. However, when relative deprivation is salient, those receiving cash transfers experience increased support for their political leaders and institutions, while those denied transfers become more politically disgruntled. This has important implications for our understanding of the political ramifications of rising inequality and social protection programs.

RNR STRATEGY 2040: Bhutan-IFPRI collaboration and beyond

The agriculture sector in Bhutan has evolved progressively from subsistence to integrated semi-commercial sector, and encompasses forestry, agriculture, and livestock, collectively termed as Renewable Natural Resources (RNR). Systematic development since the 1960s has helped improve production of crops, livestock, and overall management of natural resources. Agriculture continues to be a major source of employment after five decades of planned development, with a staggering 51 percent of its population in farming, of which 61.7 percent are female (NSB 2019). Bhutan has also successfully maintained 71 percent of its natural forest cover (FRMD 2018), representing extensive carbon sequestration sink and making the country carbon-negative. Bhutan’s “green” approach to development, founded on the philosophy of Gross National Happiness and more particularly its local values, culture, and religious beliefs of coexistence with nature, has helped in maintaining remarkably stable forest cover and clean environment. Forest cover in Bhutan consists predominantly of broad-leaved trees accounting for 50 percent coverage (1.928 million ha), while 20 percent cover is provided by coniferous trees. The estimated forest biomass of about 973 million tonnes serves as a significant terrestrial carbon sink, amounting to 457 million tonnes of carbon (FRMD 2018). The forests of Bhutan show a wide range of ecological variation and species diversity offering wide variety of social and economic benefits, ranging from easily quantifiable economic values associated with forest products to less tangible services and contributions to society, thereby serving as the foundation of sustainable development. This initiative of collaboration resulted into formalization of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MoAF) and IFPRI on July 19, 2019, that defines the areas of cooperation between the two institutions. Since the initiation of this MoU in late 2018, MoAF and IFPRI started working on the collaboration which focused on capacity development of MoAF in policy analysis and visioning. This report aims to provide synopsis of MoAF–IFPRI collaborations from 2018 to 2020, highlighting the main output and defining areas of future collaborations.

Revisiting poverty trends and the role of social protection systems in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic

Quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in Africa has been as difficult as predicting the path of the pandemic, mainly due to data limitations. The advent of new data sources, including national accounts and phone survey data, provides an opportunity for a thorough reassessment of the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent expansion of social protection systems on the evolution of poverty in Africa. In this paper, we combine per capita GDP growth from national accounts with data from High-Frequency Phone Surveys for several countries to estimate the net impact of the pandemic on poverty. We find that the pandemic has increased poverty in Africa by 1.5-1.7 percentage points in 2020, relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. We also find that countries affected by Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) experienced the greatest increases in poverty, about 2.1 percentage points in 2020. Furthermore, we assess and synthesize empirical evidence on the role that social protection systems played in mitigating the adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Africa. We review social protection responses in various African countries, mainly focusing on the impact of these programs and effectiveness of targeting systems. Although the evidence base on the protective role of social protection programs during the pandemic remains scarce, we highlight important findings on the impacts of these programs while also uncovering some vulnerabilities in social protection programming in Africa. We finally draw important lessons related to the delivery, targeting and impact of various social protection programs launched in Africa in response to the pandemic.

Can agricultural development projects empower women? A synthesis of mixed methods evaluations using pro-WEAI in the gender, agriculture, and assets project (phase 2) portfolio

Agricultural development projects increasingly include women’s empowerment and gender equality among their objectives, but efforts to evaluate their impact have been stymied by the lack of comparable measures. Moreover, the context-specificity of empowerment implies that a quantitative measure alone will be inadequate to capture the nuances of the empowerment process. The Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2), a portfolio of 13 agricultural development projects in nine countries in South Asia and Africa, developed the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) and qualitative protocols for impact evaluations. Pro-WEAI covers three major types of agencies: instrumental, intrinsic, and collective. This paper synthesizes the results of 11 mixed-methods evaluations to assess these projects’ empowerment impacts. The projects implemented the pro-WEAI and its associated qualitative protocols in their impact evaluations. Our synthesis finds mixed, and mostly null impacts on aggregate indicators of women’s empowerment, with positive impacts more likely in the South Asian, rather than African, cases. There were more significant impacts on instrumental agency indicators and collective agency indicators, reflecting the group-based approaches used. We found few significant impacts on intrinsic agency indicators, except for those projects that intentionally addressed gender norms. Quantitative analysis does not show an association between the types of strategies that projects implemented and their impacts, except for capacity building strategies. This finding reveals the limitations of quantitative analysis, given the small number of projects involved. The qualitative studies provide more nuance and insight: some base level of empowerment and forms of agency may be necessary for women to participate in project activities, to benefit or further increase their empowerment. Our results highlight the need for projects to focus specifically on empowerment, rather than assume that projects aiming to reach and benefit women automatically empower them. Our study also shows the value of both a common metric to compare empowerment impacts across projects and contexts and qualitative work to understand and contextualize these impacts.

Targeting hunger or votes? The political economy of humanitarian transfers in Malawi

Do electoral considerations play a role in the targeting of humanitarian transfers? We analyze the targeting of direct cash and food transfers distributed in Malawi in response to an exceptionally poor harvest following a late and erratic rainy season of 2015-16. Combining household survey data on transfers with a remotely sensed measure of drought and with the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, we show that transfers were disproportionately targeted at marginal constituencies. Rather than distributing the transfers based solely on need or mobilizing its tribal base, the government attempted to persuade swing voters to support its candidates in the next elections. We found no evidence that this strategy was successful at increasing the vote of ruling party candidates in subsequent elections.

Revisiting poverty trends and the role of social protection systems in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic: Working Paper

Quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in Africa has been as difficult as predicting the path of the pandemic, mainly due to data limitations. The advent of new data sources, including national accounts and phone survey data, provides an opportunity for a thorough reassessment of the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent expansion of social protection systems on the evolution of poverty in Africa. This paper combines per capita gross domestic product growth from national accounts with data from High-Frequency Phone Surveys for several countries to estimate the net impact of the pandemic on poverty. It finds that the pandemic increased poverty in Africa by 1.5–1.7 percentage points in 2020, relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. The paper also finds that countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence experienced the greatest increases in poverty, about 2.1 percentage points in 2020. Furthermore, the paper assesses and synthesizes empirical evidence on the role that social protection systems played in mitigating the adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Africa. It reviews social protection responses in various African countries, mainly focusing on the impact of these programs and effectiveness of targeting systems. Although the evidence base on the protective role of social protection programs during the pandemic remains scarce, the paper highlights important findings on the impacts of these programs while also uncovering some vulnerabilities in social protection programming in Africa. Finally, the paper draws important lessons related to the delivery, targeting, and impact of various social protection programs launched in Africa in response to the pandemic.

Does the UN Joint Program for Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment (JP RWEE) deliver on its empowerment objectives?

This paper compares the empowerment impacts of the UN Joint Program for Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment (JP RWEE) in Ethiopia, Niger, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan using the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI). We assess the extent of empowerment and gender parity, and decompose the sources of disempowerment, separately for men and women and for beneficiary and control groups. We then estimate program impacts on A-WEAI and its component indicators and assess whether estimated impacts are consistent with the activities implemented by the program. We interpret the quantitative results in the light of the qualitative studies undertaken as part of the impact evaluation. Despite the diversity in country and cultural contexts, in all four countries, women are more disempowered than men, although large proportions of men are themselves disempowered. Excessive workload is the most common major contributor to disempowerment, and so is lack of group membership. The program had positive impacts on aggregate empowerment measures for program participants in Niger, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan. Nevertheless, gender parity improved only in Nepal. The group-based approach was a clear contributor to women’s empowerment in Ethiopia, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan. In Kyrgyzstan, the GALS/BALI approach contributed to impacts across almost all indicators of empowerment. The positive impact of GALS and GALS/BALI on men and women alike in Kyrgyzstan is consistent with emerging evidence that involving both men and women in gender transformative approaches, rather than focusing on women alone, may be key to effective and sustainable programs. Although impacts on time use were insignificant in the quantitative study, the qualitative work pointed out negative impacts, emphasizing the unintended consequences of increased workload for women who participate in livelihood interventions.

2021 IFPRI audited financial statements

In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of IFPRI as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, and the changes in its net assets and its cash flows for the years ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

Cash transfers and intimate partner violence: A research view on design and implementation for risk mitigation and prevention

Cash transfers are a widely used form of social protection, providing effective and efficient ways to reduce poverty and support well-being. Evidence suggests that cash transfers can reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) across a wide range of programs and contexts, yet there is little guidance for design or implementation components in cash transfer programs that would maximize these reductions. Based on research into pathways of impact between cash transfers and IPV, this issue brief offers recommendations on cash transfer programming to increase gender-sensitivity and responsiveness to IPV prevention.

Annual report 2021: CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets

PIM had a productive final year centered on synthesizing findings while continuing to respond to demand on the impacts of COVID-19 and preparing the transition to the new CGIAR portfolio. PIM findings and engagement contributed to Myanmar’s response to COVID-19, South Africa’s policies on resilience to climate change, Tunisia's policies for pastoral development, a reform of Nigeria’s national agricultural research system, Ghana’s fish seed and farm certification system, gender strategies for three agricultural value chains in Honduras, and genome editing guidelines for the agricultural sector in four African countries. PIM research informed policy documents of FAO, IFAD, One CGIAR, the UK Government, the World Bank and the World Food Programme. PIM tools enabled more equitable co-management of 76 protected areas in Peru and informed World Bank social protection projects. Books on food security in Bangladesh and Malawi, trade in Latin America, African agricultural value chains and gender were published. 42 PIM synthesis briefs and notes were issued, summarizing research results in key thematic areas. PIM contributed 181 journal articles, 8 journal issues (on demand driven seed systems, China’s response to COVID-19, agriculture and food security in China under COVID-19, food loss and waste, landscape restoration, multistakeholder fora in forestry and two issues on gender), 15 book chapters and about 500 non-peer-reviewed outputs. 16 PIM webinars were organized. PIM’s contributions to the United Nations Food Systems Summit covered agricultural extension, food system innovations and digital technologies, the future of small farms, the science-policy interface, the cost of ending hunger by 2030, food waste and loss, management of the commons and gender. Building on past PIM investments in economywide modeling tools and social accounting matrices, PIM teams continued to assess the impacts of COVID-19 and policy responses at country level. Lessons learned from PIM country-level analyses on COVID-19’s impacts on food systems, poverty and diets are summarized in a chapter of the IFPRI 2022 book “COVID19 and global food security: Two years later”. A paper in partnership with the CGIAR COVID19 Hub reviewed the literature on agri-food value chains for evidence of fractures and resilience in response to the pandemic. The results of coordinated studies on the impacts of COVID-19 on value chains in different countries were published. Several cross-CGIAR outputs initiated by PIM speak to the fulfillment of PIM’s convening role as an integrating program: the CGIAR Foresight Report and CGIAR foresight website; several outputs produced through the CGIAR Community of Excellence on Seed Systems Development, and the CGIAR book “Advancing gender equality through agricultural and environmental research: Past, present, and future” are examples. Other examples of PIM global public goods produced in 2021 are 27 innovations at various stages of uptake, a cross-cutting effort to distill PIM lessons on migration; new or updated social accounting matrices for 25 countries; and lessons and tools on stakeholder platforms for natural resource governance. Independent reviews assessed the effectiveness of PIM’s partnerships and the use by partners of PIM’s work on economywide modelling, agricultural insurance, tenure and governance, and the Ag-Incentives database.

Climate finance: Funding sustainable food systems transformation

The transformation of food systems is crucial for achieving multiple global objectives, including the climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience goals established in the 2015 Paris Agreement. This international treaty committed signatories to “making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.” Major global initiatives in 2021, including COP26 and the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), have reiterated the Paris Agreement objective of reorienting finance flows and have focused international attention on the critical role of food systems transformation in meeting global climate goals.

Social protection: Designing adaptive systems to build resilience to climate change

Social protection programs are a central component of national strategies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to increase incomes for poor households and protect them from shocks to their livelihoods. Social protection programs currently reach more than 2 billion people worldwide and are found in every country in sub-Saharan Africa. Social protection systems comprise a wide variety of programs that include targeted cash and food transfers, food vouchers, school meals, public works, old age pensions, and public sector insurance, as well as the policy, administrative, and funding mechanisms to deliver these programs. Numerous studies that draw extensively on rigorous impact evaluations have documented substantial short-term impacts of social protection programs, especially cash and in-kind social assistance, on food security and asset formation, as well as on education, health, and dietary diversity. However, evidence on the impact of social protection systems designed to sustainably reduce poverty by responding to large-scale shocks is more limited. For example, many national social protection systems in the poorest and most vulnerable countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia dating to the 2000s started with targeted standing safety net programs and then later integrated measures to provide humanitarian assistance, scale up temporary transfers to better respond to shocks, and promote household and community resilience — the ability to avoid or escape from chronic poverty in the face of myriad stressors and shocks. The potential for social protection to help address the challenges of climate change has been recognized for more than a decade, but the expansion of social protection programs designed to address climate change is relatively recent.

Forsa pilot program and evaluation plan

Forsa, which means “Opportunity” in Arabic, is a new economic inclusion program of the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, the program aims to graduate beneficiaries of the national cash transfer program, the Takaful & Karama Program (TKP), from being dependent on transfers from TKP to economic self-reliance by enabling them to engage in wage employment or sustainable economic enterprises. The most recent World Bank Economic Inclusion report (Andrews et al. 2021) highlights a recent increase globally in such graduation or economic inclusion programs, which now reach around 92 million beneficiaries from 20 million households across more than 75 countries. This rapid growth is raising demand for evidence on best practices in graduation program implementation. Egypt’s experience with Forsa can contribute to such guidance.

Impact of a gender and nutrition behavioral change communication amid the COVID-19 crisis in Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone

Social behavior change communication (SBCC) interventions on gender and nutrition are now commonly implemented, but their impact on diet quality and empowerment is rarely assessed rigorously. We estimate the impact of a nutrition and gender SBCC intervention on women’s dietary diversity and empowerment in Myanmar during an especially challenging period—the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention was implemented as a cluster-randomized controlled trial in 30 villages in Myanmar’s Central Dry Zone. Our analysis employs data from the baseline survey implemented in February 2020 and a phone survey implemented in February–March 2021 and focuses on women’s dietary diversity and sub-indicators of the project-level women’s empowerment in agriculture index (pro-WEAI). Two indicators of women’s empowerment―inputs to productive decisions and access to and decisions over credit―improved, indicating that SBCC interventions can contribute to changing gendered perceptions and behaviors; however, most of the empowerment indicators did not change, indicating that much of gendered norms and beliefs take time to change. Women’s dietary diversity scores were higher by half a food group out of 10 in treatment villages. More women in treatment villages consumed nuts, milk, meat or fish, and Vitamin A–rich foods daily than in control villages. We show that even in the setting of a pandemic, a SBCC intervention can be delivered through a range of tools, including household visits, phone-based coaching, and voice-based training, that are responsive to local and individual resource limitations. Gender messaging can change some gendered perceptions; but it may take more time to change deeply ingrained gender norms. Nutrition messaging can help counter the declines in dietary quality that would be expected from negative shocks to supply chains and incomes.

Increasing production diversity and diet quality through agriculture, gender, and nutrition linkages: A cluster-randomized controlled trial in Bangladesh

A growing body of evidence indicates that agricultural development programs can potentially improve production diversity and diet quality of poor rural households; however, less is known about which aspects of program design are effective in diverse contexts and feasible to implement at scale. We address this issue through an evaluation of the Agriculture, Gender, and Nutrition Linkages (ANGeL) project. ANGeL is a randomized controlled trial testing what combination of trainings focused on agricultural production, nutrition behavior change communication, and gender sensitization were most effective in improving production diversity and diet quality among rural farm households in Bangladesh. We find that trainings focused on agriculture improved production diversity in terms of greater production of fruits and vegetables grown on the homestead, eggs, dairy, and fish; adding trainings on nutrition and gender did not significantly change these impacts. Trainings focused on both agriculture and nutrition showed the largest impacts on diet quality, with evidence indicating that households in this arm also significantly increased consumption out of homestead production for fruits and vegetables, eggs, dairy, and fish. Findings indicate that agricultural training that promotes production of diverse, high-value, nutrient-rich foods can increase production diversity, and this can improve diet quality, but diet quality impacts are larger when agricultural training is combined with nutrition training. Relative to treatments combining agriculture and nutrition training, we find no significant impact of adding the gender sensitization on our measures of production diversity or diet quality.

Open for business: Pathways to strengthen CGIAR's responsible private sector engagement

CGIAR has considerable experience with private sector engagement in the context of its mission to create sustainable and resilient food, land and water systems, and there is continuing interest and dialogue on this theme within CGIAR and the international development community more generally. The on-going CGIAR reform provides an opportunity to capture those experiences and harmonize strategies under the new structure, as has been acknowledged in the new ‘CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy’. Commissioned by the NL-CGIAR Strategic Partnership, this report aims to identify, discuss and evaluate pathways for strengthening collaboration between CGIAR and the private sector to stimulate innovation and the scaling of these innovations in food, land and water systems. The objective is to advance private sector engagement in the CGIAR, based on transparent CGIAR system-wide mechanisms and processes.

Waves of disease, waves of poverty: New evidence on the economic impacts of COVID-19 and political instability in Myanmar

COVID-19-related trade disruptions hit several sectors in Myanmar as early as January 2020, but it was the appearance of the country’s first cases in March 2020 and the subsequent lockdown in April that really hurt the economy. Nonessential businesses shut down, workers and traders could not leave home, and demand for labor dried up. The initial COVID-19 prevention measures worked well — resulting in only a few hundred infections in a country of over 50 million by June — but led to a sharp spike in poverty rates followed by a modest economic recovery in mid-2020. However, by September 2020, the country had faced a second, far worse phase of the crisis, with another wave of infections emerging in Rakhine in August 2020 and quickly spreading out of control to Yangon and other regions. Myanmar went from a few hundred confirmed cases in early August to more than 80,000 by late November (though this was surely a large underestimate, given low testing rates), despite widespread lockdown measures starting in mid-September. Then, just as the economy was showing signs of recovery in early 2021, the military took control of the government on February 1, 2021, sparking wide-scale protests and strikes, withdrawal of major foreign investments, crippling financial instability, and a collapse of economic confidence. To make matters worse, mid-2021 saw the Delta wave sweep through Myanmar, producing even higher rates of infection.

A major food transfer program in Bangladesh fell short during the COVID-19 pandemic

Public food transfer programs serve as an important safety net for those facing hunger and food insecurity in both low- and high-income countries around the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these programs have become even more crucial, as food insecurity and poverty rates have soared. But lockdowns and other public health restrictions can also disrupt food distribution operations and thus limit their effectiveness.

How India’s agrifood supply chains fared during the COVID-19 lockdown, from farm to fork

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government imposed a stringent national lockdown from March 24 to May 31, 2020, which caused severe disruptions across agrifood supply chains from “farm to fork.” The government was consistently one step behind in terms of preventing these problems (Narayanan and Saha 2020b).

Haiti and its multiple tragedies: Much more needs to be done

Haiti has been suffering for many decades a damaging combination of climate and natural disasters and political, economic, social, and health crises. Just in the last months there was the terrible assassination of a sitting president on July 2021; an extremely damaging earthquake of 7.2 magnitude on August 2021; the heart-wrenching images of Haitians at the US-Mexican border in September 2021; the expansion of gang activity with the kidnapping of US missionaries in October 2021; the more recent alarming episode of the shooting at the current interim Prime Minister in January 2022; and another earthquake of 5.3 magnitude in late January, to name only the more recent sequence of very bad events affecting the country.

Returns to R&D investment to inform priority setting in the One CGIAR and NARS

The 2019 report of the Global Commission on Adaptation for accelerated action to adapt to climate change included a call for increased allocation of resources to international agricultural research. The production and adaptation challenges faced by agriculture will be most acutely felt in Africa and South Asia, focus regions of the CGIAR, the world’s largest public food systems research network. These challenges come at a time when the CGIAR is undergoing a transformation of its partnerships, knowledge, assets and global presence, emerging as One CGIAR, aimed at sharpening its mission and impact focus to 2030 and beyond, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Evidence on the impacts of CGIAR research since the 1980s have consistently found high rates of return to investment. How could this evidence on the performance of the CGIAR and its partnership with NARS in developing regions be used to inform investment priority setting and to achieve the One CGIAR goals in the coming years? We used detailed R&D investment data from the CGIAR, NARS (ASTI) and evidence from the literature on returns to CGIAR investment by crop and region to develop and calibrate a model of R&D investment that allows us to conduct priority-setting analysis of alternative CGIAR investment across research activities and regions. The model developed can be linked to global partial equilibrium and economy-wide forward-looking models to analyze the effect of different CGIAR investment options under alternative future scenarios. We checked the plausibility of the results obtained by the model calculating the Benefit-Cost ratio of historical CGIAR investments and found that each dollar invested by the CGIAR between 1971 and 2018 returned almost 10 dollars in output as the result of increased productivity, which is within the range of returns found by most recent meta-analyses impact of CGIAR investment. An application of the model to SSA shows that the best results for the CGIAR are obtained from investments in cassava and potato in Southern Africa; yams, sorghum, cassava and groundnuts in West Africa; cassava in East Africa and groundnuts and shoats in the Sahel.

The role of poultry transfers in diet diversity: A cluster randomized intent to treat analysis

Poultry has gained renewed attention as a promising value chain for women because it is an asset that is widely accessible to women, has low start-up costs, and provides a good source of nutritious animal-sourced foods for children in chicken meat and, especially, eggs. The current study presents evidence from an experimental intervention that randomly provided women either a poultry package transfer of vaccinated, improved-breed chickens and related inputs, or a cash grant of equivalent value within a sample of households participating in a social safety net program. These transfers were embedded in a set of intensive livelihood and enhanced nutrition interventions as part of a broader experiment in rural Ethiopia. We assess the impact of the poultry package transfer as well as the enhanced nutrition intervention on the consumption of eggs by both children and adult women. We find that the poultry transfer increased the frequency of egg consumption as well as the sale of eggs, falling between the extreme of an autarkic household and one in which production decisions are fully separable from consumption choices.

Proposed indicators for selecting needy participants for the Vulnerable Women's Benefit (VWB) Program in urban Bangladesh

Bangladesh has extensive experience with targeted social safety net programs. Most of these programs are widely credited with providing the poor access to food and improving their livelihoods. However, the need for assistance is overwhelming. According to the latest poverty estimates, 24.3 percent of the country’s 163 million people were poor in 2016 (BBS 2019). Improving program targeting to reach the poorest of the poor effectively is needed to address the wide gap between the resources available for safety net programs and those in need of support. Targeting effectiveness indicates the extent to which program benefits are received by the neediest versus the less needy or non-needy population. A well-targeted intervention improves the real income, food consumption, and nutrition of the neediest without providing those benefits to members of society who are better off. As such, targeting benefits to those most in need is a cost-effective way of implementing a program. Upon request from the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MoWCA) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in Bangladesh, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) undertook this study to develop indicators for targeting the urban poor through the Vulnerable Women’s Benefit (VWB) program in Bangladesh.

Behavioral market intelligence and its implications for seed systems development

In many countries, varietal turnover rates are stubbornly low in seed systems that target smallholder farmers. While there are several factors that contribute to low turnover, two important behavioral factors that limit adoption of new varieties are the difficulties that farmers may face in learning about new varieties and their hesitancy to assume risks associated with investing in new varieties. In this brief, we review part of the literature on behavioral constraints that result in slow varietal turnover and discuss the interventions that the CGIAR Initiative on Market Intelligence and Product Profiling for Impactful Breeding will be testing to overcome these behavioral barriers. We highlight areas for innovation to facilitate farmers’ learning about new varieties, including leveraging social networks and information and communication technologies (ICT), and to strengthen farmers’ ability to manage risks associated with investing in new varieties, including facilitation of experimentation, insurance and consumer marketing.

Post-program impacts of transfer programs on child development: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh

Evidence shows transfer programs can improve early childhood development (ECD). However, knowledge gaps remain on how short-term impacts on ECD evolve as children grow older, how program design features and context affect child development impacts over time, and through what pathways such impacts occur. We study the Transfer Modality Research Initiative (TMRI), a 2-year randomized controlled trial in two regions of Bangladesh that provided cash or food transfers, with or without complementary nutrition programming, to mothers of children aged 0-2 years at baseline. Drawing on data collected at 6 months post-program (when children were about 2-4 years old) and at 4 years post-program (when children were about 6-8 years old), we assess post-program impacts of TMRI on children’s home environment and development. We find strong post-program impacts on the home environment from cash transfers in the Northern region, particularly when combined with complementary programming, however limited post-program effects on child development outcomes. Improvements found in child development tend to be concentrated in boys. We find few post-program improvements in home environment or child development from food transfers in the Southern region, with or without complementary programming.