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

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researcher spotlight

Samuel Benin

Samuel Benin is the Acting Director for Africa in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. He conducts research on national strategies and public investment for accelerating food systems transformation in Africa and provides analytical support to the African Union’s CAADP Biennial Review.

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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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Development Strategies and Governance

Danielle Resnick

Senior Research Fellow

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Bio

Dr. Danielle Resnick currently is a Senior Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution in the Global Economy and Development Program. Key research areas include the political economy of agricultural policy and food systems, decentralization, urban governance, informality, and democratization. She has conducted analysis, policy outreach, and/or fieldwork in a wide range of countries, including Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, and Zambia.

Her work has appeared in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Food Policy, Nature Food, and World Development, among others. She has authored or co-edited several books, including The Political Economy of Food System Transformation: Pathways to Progress in a Polarized World (with Johan Swinnen, OUP/IFPRI, 2023), Ghana’s Economic and Agricultural Transformation: Past Performance and Future Prospects (with Xinshen Diao, Peter Hazell, and Shashi Kolavalli, OUP/IFPRI, 2019), and Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2014).  Her analysis and commentary also have been featured in several popular outlets, including Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, National Public Radio, Radio France International, France24, and Voice of America.

She has served in several advisory roles, including currently on the UN’s High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition for the 2024 report on Strengthening Urban and Peri-Urban Food Systems and on the advisory group for the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice. She previously was a member of the Lead Expert Group for the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (GloPan) for the 2020 report on Future Food Systems. Dr. Resnick further serves as a country expert for the Bertelsmann Transformation Index and currently sits on the editorial boards of Journal of Development Studies, Regional and Federal Studies, and Populism.

She received her PhD in Government from Cornell University, MSc in Development Studies from London School of Economics, and BS in International Political Economy from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Languages spoken: English, French

Publications

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Publications

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Book Chapter

Improved governance: Creating supportive environments for diet and nutrition policies

2024Resnick, Danielle; Nogales, Maria-Teresa
Details

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.

Year published

2024

Authors

Resnick, Danielle; Nogales, Maria-Teresa

Citation

Resnick, Danielle; and Nogales, Maria-Teresa. 2024. Improved governance: Creating supportive environments for diet and nutrition policies. In Global food policy report 2024: Food systems for healthy diets and nutrition. Chapter 8, Pp. 72-80. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141892

Keywords

Governance; Socioeconomic Environment; Food Policies; Nutrition Policies; Developing Countries; Social Protection

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Working Paper

The enabling environment for large-scale food fortification in Madagascar

2024Resnick, Danielle
Details

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.

Year published

2024

Authors

Resnick, Danielle

Citation

Resnick, Danielle. 2024. The enabling environment for large-scale food fortification in Madagascar. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2251. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141798

Country/Region

Madagascar

Keywords

Africa; Southern Africa; Eastern Africa; Environment; Food Fortification; Implementation; Micronutrient Deficiencies; Governance; Fragility

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

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

2024Zorbas, Christina; Resnick, Danielle; Jones, Eleanor; Suri, Shoba; Iruhiriye, Elyse; Headey, Derek D.; Martin, Will; Vos, Rob; Arndt, Channing; Menon, Purnima
Details

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.

Year published

2024

Authors

Zorbas, Christina; Resnick, Danielle; Jones, Eleanor; Suri, Shoba; Iruhiriye, Elyse; Headey, Derek D.; Martin, Will; Vos, Rob; Arndt, Channing; Menon, Purnima

Citation

Zorbas, Christina; Resnick, Danielle; Jones, Eleanor; Suri, Shoba; Iruhiriye, Elyse; Headey, Derek D.; Martin, Will; et al. 2024. From promises to action: Analyzing global commitments on food security and diets since 2015. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2238. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/138946

Keywords

Food Security; Diet; Accountability; Food Policies; Hunger; Governance; Nutrition

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Blogs

The political economy of reforming costly agricultural policies
IFPRI Blog
 | 
March 20, 2023

The political economy of reforming costly agricultural policies

By Danielle Resnick, Rob Vos, and Will Martin

The diverse benefits of repurposing support programs.

The devolution revolution paradox: Greater accountability, lower spending on agricultural services
IFPRI Blog
 | 
August 05, 2021

The devolution revolution paradox: Greater accountability, lower spending on agricultural services

By Danielle Resnick

A potential obstacle to food system transformation at the local level.

Policy responses to COVID-19: What worked and how to build resilience for the future
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 11, 2021

Policy responses to COVID-19: What worked and how to build resilience for the future

By John McDermott, Danielle Resnick, Nichola Naylor, and Jessica Wallach

The pandemic has exposed fragilities and encouraged innovations.

Events

Tackling the Hidden Costs of our Food Systems
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

June 6, 2024, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Tackling the Hidden Costs of our Food Systems

Hybrid Event: June 6, 2024 at 9:30am-11:00am EDT. This event will have a discussion on the hidden costs of food systems and the remedies to reduce economic burdens, while moving toward more sustainable, health-promoting, and socially inclusive food systems.

2024 Global Food Policy Report: Improving Diets and Nutrition through Food Systems: What Will it Take?
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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May 29, 2024, 9:30 – 11:00 am

2024 Global Food Policy Report: Improving Diets and Nutrition through Food Systems: What Will it Take?

Hybrid Event: May 29, 2024 at 9:30am-11:00am EDT. IFPRI’s 2024 Global Food Policy Report on Food Systems for Healthy Diets, presents evidence-based policy and governance solutions to strengthen diet quality and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries, and examines priorities for future research on food systems for better nutrition.

Sudan at a Crossroads: Food Systems, Hunger, and Humanitarian Aid During Civil Conflict
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

May 2, 2024, 10:00 – 11:30 am

Sudan at a Crossroads: Food Systems, Hunger, and Humanitarian Aid During Civil Conflict

Hybrid Event: May 2, 2024 at 10:00am-11:30am EDT. This IFPRI policy seminar will reflect on urgent data, analytical, and policy needs to mitigate food insecurity and revitalize food systems in Sudan. This event will bring together researchers from IFPRI’s Sudan country program, conflict analysts, humanitarian donors, and country experts in a hybrid format.

News

February 27, 2024 | In the News

What’s driving the farmer protests sweeping Europe? (CNN)

Senior research fellow Danielle Resnick was interviewed by CNN on the reasons behind farmers’ protests throughout Europe. Resnick says, “These protests reflect some complex political economy dynamics, especially as European governments are trying to navigate the fiscal and climate crisis. Farmers have a lot of grievances, but one that they noted was their own returns on investment has really shifted over […]

September 29, 2023 | Press Release

Political economy considerations for transforming food systems: A new book explores pathways to progress

September 29, 2023, Washington D.C. – The current state of the global food system is increasingly being acknowledged as unsustainable, with far-reaching consequences for the environment and public health. The new book The Political Economy of Food System Transformation: Pathways to Progress in a Polarized World, co-edited by Danielle Resnick and Johan Swinnen and published […]

June 16, 2023 | In the News

Building popular support for post-conflict constitutions: Lessons from Nepal (The Brookings Institution) 

“In early 2023, the United Nations announced that the world is facing the highest number of violent conflicts since World War II, with a majority of these being civil conflicts. Historically, ending civil conflict and fostering democratic transitions has involved constitutional reforms that address the grievances that originally sparked violence,” write IFPRI research fellow Jordan Kyle and […]