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Who we are

With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Agnes Quisumbing

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Agnes Quisumbing is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit. She co-leads a research program that examines how closing the gap between men’s and women’s ownership and control of assets may lead to better development outcomes. She is currently engaged in impact evaluations of agricultural development programs, focusing on their impacts on gender asset inequality, in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Her past work at IFPRI analyzed the factors that enable individuals, households, and communities to move out of poverty over the long term, and on how resource allocation within households and families affects the design and outcome of development policies. Her research interests include poverty, gender, property rights, and economic mobility. She led a study on intrahousehold allocation and development policy in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and South Africa. Quisumbing has also worked on women’s land rights in Ghana, the Philippines, and Sumatra, and has been involved in longitudinal studies in Bangladesh, Guatemala, and the Philippines.

A citizen of the Philippines, Quisumbing joined IFPRI in 1995, before which she worked at the University of the Philippines, Diliman and Los Baños; the World Bank; Yale University; and the International Rice Research Institute. She received her PhD and MA in Economics from the University of the Philippines, Quezon City and her AB in Economics from De La Salle University in Manila.

Languages spoken: Cebuano, Chinese, English, Filipino (Tagalog), Spanish

Publications

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Publications

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Working Paper

How can anticipatory action programming support women? Application of the reach-benefit-empower-transform framework in Nepal and Nigeria

2024Gonzales, Teresa; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Madero, Ana; Mittrick, Caitlin; Myers, Emily; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Rapadas, Amica
Details

How can anticipatory action programming support women? Application of the reach-benefit-empower-transform framework in Nepal and Nigeria

As floods increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, anticipatory action (AA) programs offer a promising approach to mitigate their impacts. However, there is limited research about how AA programming can address the specific needs of women, who often face heightened vulnerabilities during disasters. This paper applies the Reach, Benefit, Empower, Transform (RBET) framework to examine gender dynamics in AA programming through case studies in Nepal and Nigeria—two flood-prone countries where AA initiatives have been piloted. Using data from key informant interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders, including government agencies, NGOs, local advocacy groups, and direct beneficiaries of flood programs, we assess barriers and enabling conditions for AA to reach, benefit, and empower women and broader opportunities for transformation of gender norms and social inequalities. Our findings reveal key implementation challenges, including limited funding, weak integration with broader disaster risk reduction efforts, and inadequate early warning systems. However, we also identify practical strategies for improving AA’s gender responsiveness, such as relying on individual rather than household-level data, providing accessible early warning information, offering aid modalities that meet women’s specific needs (such as dignity kits), ensuring women’s participation in community decision-making, and facilitating ongoing inclusive household and community dialogues in flood-prone communities rather than only responding to specific flood warnings. The paper concludes with recommendations for scaling up gender-inclusive AA programming to enhance resilience and reduce the disproportionate impacts of flooding on women.

Year published

2024

Authors

Gonzales, Teresa; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Madero, Ana; Mittrick, Caitlin; Myers, Emily; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Rapadas, Amica

Citation

Gonzales, Teresa; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Madero, Ana; Mittrick, Caitlin; Myers, Emily; Quisumbing, Agnes; and Rapadas, Amica. 2024. How can anticipatory action programming support women? Application of the reach-benefit-empower-transform framework in Nepal and Nigeria. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2298. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Nepal; Nigeria

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Africa; Western Africa; Disaster Risk Management; Flooding; Gender; Vulnerability; Women; Climate Change Adaptation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Women improving nutrition through self-help groups in India: Does nutrition information help?

2024Kumar, Neha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Scott, Samuel P.; Menon, Purnima; Thai, Giang; Gupta, Shivani; Nichols, Carly; WINGS study team
Details

Women improving nutrition through self-help groups in India: Does nutrition information help?

Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) are an important platform for reaching poor women in India. Despite SHGs’ women-focused programming, evidence of the impact of SHG-based interventions on nutrition outcomes is limited, and most evaluations of nutrition interventions have not examined intermediate outcomes along the impact pathways or outcomes for women themselves. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an integrated agriculture-nutrition intervention delivered through women’s SHGs in five states in central and eastern India. The interventions involved the delivery of nutrition behavior change communication to groups through participatory approaches, community engagement around key issues, and the strengthening of collective organizations. Our analysis is based on three rounds of rich panel data on close to 2700 rural women and their households from eight districts in these five states and qualitative work from an accompanying process evaluation. Using difference-in-difference models with nearest neighbor matching methods, we present results on women’s anthropometry and diet-related outcomes. We do not observe any improvements in women’s BMI or overall dietary diversity. Although more women in the nutrition intensification arm consumed animal source foods, nuts and seeds, and fruits, this was not enough to increase overall dietary diversity scores or the proportion of women achieving minimum dietary diversity. We measure intermediate outcomes along the program’s impact pathways and find improvements in household incomes, cultivation of home gardens, and utilization of government schemes but not in women’s empowerment. The lack of improvement in anthropometry and diets despite changes in some intermediate outcomes can be attributed to several factors such as low implementation intensity, poor facilitator capacity and incentives, the lack of relevance of the BCC topics to the average SHG member, and resource and agency constraints to adoption of recommended practices. Although we do not have data to test the parallel trends assumption and so do not interpret our results as causal, these findings do suggest that optimism about using group-based platforms needs to be tempered in resource-poor contexts.

Year published

2024

Authors

Kumar, Neha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Scott, Samuel P.; Menon, Purnima; Thai, Giang; Gupta, Shivani; Nichols, Carly; WINGS study team

Citation

Kumar, Neha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Scott, Samuel P.; Menon, Purnima; Thai, Giang; Gupta, Shivani; Nichols, Carly; and WINGS study team. 2024. Women improving nutrition through self-help groups in India: Does nutrition information help? Food Policy 128(October 2024): 102716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102716

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Agriculture; Body Mass Index; Maternal Nutrition; Self-help Groups; Women; Nutrition Education

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102716 Source record

Project

Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Understanding modifiable caregiver factors contributing to child development among young children in rural Malawi

2024
Bliznashka, Lilia; Nwabuikwu, Odiche; Ahun, Marilyn; Becker, Karoline; Nnensa, Theresa; Roschnik, Natalie; Kachinjika, Monice; Mvula, Peter; Munthali, Alister; Ndolo, Victoria
…more Katundu, Mangani; Maleta, Kenneth; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Gladstone, Melissa; Gelli, Aulo
Details

Understanding modifiable caregiver factors contributing to child development among young children in rural Malawi

This study examined modifiable caregiver factors influencing child development in Malawi using baseline data from 1,021 mothers and their children <2 years of age participating in a cluster-randomized controlled trial implemented in rural Malawi (2022–2025). We fit an evidence-based theoretical model using structural equation modelling examining four caregiver factors: (1) diet diversity (sum of food groups consumed in the past 24 h), (2) empowerment (assessed using the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index), (3) mental health (assessed using the Self-Reported Questionnaire, SRQ-20), and (4) stimulation (number of stimulation activities the mother engaged in the past 3 days). Child development was assessed using the Malawi Development Assessment Tool (norm-referenced aggregate Z-score). The model controlled for child, caregiver, and household socioeconomic characteristics. Results showed that caregiver dietary diversity was directly associated with higher child development scores (standardized coefficient 0.091 [95% CI 0.027, 0.153]) and lower SRQ-20 scores −0.058 (−0.111, −0.006). Empowerment was directly associated with higher child development scores (0.071 [0.007, 0.133]), higher stimulation score (0.074 [0.013, 0.140]), higher dietary diversity (0.085 [0.016, 0.145]), and lower SRQ-20 scores (−0.068 [−0.137, −0.002]). Further, higher empowerment was indirectly associated with improved child development through enhancement of caregiver dietary diversity, with an indirect effect of 0.008 (0.002, 0.018). These findings highlight the important role that caregiver diet and empowerment play in directly influencing child development and other aspects of caregiver well-being. Interventions aimed at enhancing child development should consider these factors as potential targets to improve outcomes for children and caregivers.

Year published

2024

Authors

Bliznashka, Lilia; Nwabuikwu, Odiche; Ahun, Marilyn; Becker, Karoline; Nnensa, Theresa; Roschnik, Natalie; Kachinjika, Monice; Mvula, Peter; Munthali, Alister; Ndolo, Victoria; Katundu, Mangani; Maleta, Kenneth; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Gladstone, Melissa; Gelli, Aulo

Citation

Bliznashka, Lilia; Nwabuikwu, Odiche; Ahun, Marilyn; Becker, Karoline; Nnensa, Theresa; Roschnik, Natalie; et al. 2024. Understanding modifiable caregiver factors contributing to child development among young children in rural Malawi. Maternal and Child Nutrition 20(4): e13698. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13698

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Child Development; Diet; Mental Health; Stimuli; Women’s Empowerment

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13698 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

How anticipatory action can empower women in disaster-prone areas
IFPRI Blog
 | 
December 12, 2024

How anticipatory action can empower women in disaster-prone areas

By Emily Myers, Katrina Kosec, Jordan Kyle, Agnes Quisumbing, Teresa Gonzales, Ana Madero, Caitlin Mittrick, and Amica Rapadas

How assistance programs can catalyze improvements in gender equality.

ANEW way forward: Strategies to promote women’s empowerment in farmer producer organizations
IFPRI Blog
 | 
February 21, 2024

ANEW way forward: Strategies to promote women’s empowerment in farmer producer organizations

By Jessica Heckert, Kalyani Raghunathan, Agnes Quisumbing, Emma Fawcett, Emily Myers, Flor Paz, and Soumyajit Ray

Examining a promising avenue for development programs.

Introducing the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS)
IFPRI Blog
 | 
October 13, 2023

Introducing the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS)

By Emily Myers, Jessica Heckert, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Hazel Malapit, Greg Seymour, and Agnes Quisumbing

A new tool to address the gender data gap in agricultural development.

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Events

Building More Inclusive and Natural Resource-Secure Food Futures
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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December 12, 2024, 10:30 – 12:00 pm

Building More Inclusive and Natural Resource-Secure Food Futures

Throughout her career, Ruth Meinzen-Dick has made pathbreaking contributions to natural resource management and gender equity, drawing from her deep engagement with communities to improve understanding and measurement in these areas. Dr. Meinzen-Dick’s research encompasses land and water policy, property rights, collective action, and games for experiential learning, with a longstanding focus on improving equity. […]

Metrics Matter: Assessing Progress towards Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture and Beyond
IFPRI at External Event

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August 14, 2024, 9:00 – 11:30 am

Metrics Matter: Assessing Progress towards Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture and Beyond

The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), will hold a public seminar featuring three studies on women empowerment on August 14, 2024, 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM (Asia/Manila) / August 13, 2024, 9:00 PM to 11:30 PM (US/Eastern) at the PIDS Conference Hall and via Zoom. […]

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists
IFPRI at External Event

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August 2 to 7, 2024

32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists

The triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE-2024), centred on the theme “Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems” is scheduled from August 2-7, 2024, in New Delhi, India. The conference offers a distinctive platform, providing a golden opportunity for the agricultural academic institutions and researchers to convene in person, exchange knowledge, and actively contribute to the […]

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News

January 21, 2021 | In the News

Gender equality and food security in rural South Asia: A holistic approach to the SDGs (New Security Beat)

New Security Beat (Wilson Center) published an article on food security, land ownership, and gender.  In South Asia, food security and nutrition have not improved significantly despite the region’s economic growth. Importantly, both are deeply influenced by gender relations in the agricultural sector. Enforcing women’s access to land and other productive assets, accounting for rural women’s growing work […]

February 04, 2020 | In the News

How can data build a truer picture of the gender gap in food insecurity? (Devex)

Devex published an article on the challenges of an accurate picture of the differences in food security between men and women when using typical household survey methods. Research Fellow Jessica Heckert stated that “countrywide surveys offer the advantage of gathering data on a wider variety of topics, but because of that breadth in a single […]

November 12, 2019 | In the News

The 19th Annual ReSAKSS Conference Opens Monday In Lomé (Togo 24)

Togo 24 reported on the opening of the conference and the 2019 Annual trends and outlook report: Gender equality in rural Africa: From commitments to outcomes. (2019 ATOR). The Report presents an Africa-wide analysis on a topic of strategic importance to the CAADP agenda. The ATOR 2019 report examines the progress and results of research […]

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