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

researcher spotlight

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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experts

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Hazel Malapit

Senior Research Coordinator

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Bio

Hazel Malapit is a Senior Research Coordinator in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in Washington, DC. She coordinates research, training, and technical assistance on implementing the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), and conducts research on gender, women’s empowerment, agriculture, health, and nutrition issues. She is Co-Principal Investigator for the Gender, Agriculture & Assets Program (GAAP) (Phase 2) and leads the technical assistance team providing guidance to partners using WEAI tools. Hazel also works with agricultural development projects, CGIAR Centers, and developing country partners to develop and apply women’s empowerment metrics in impact assessments and leads strategic research projects in priority topics.

From 2013–2021, Hazel led the Gender, Equity and Empowerment unit in the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Health and Nutrition (A4NH), where she was responsible for the integration of gender and social equity. Currently, she is Co-Lead of the Methods Module for the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform, which aims to co-create, consolidate, and share cutting-edge methods and tools for high-quality, impactful gender research.

Before joining IFPRI, she held the Herman Postdoctoral Fellowship in Gender and Economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and conducted research on gender, labor markets, and data issues at the World Bank’s Gender and Development unit (PRMGE). She holds a PhD in Economics from the American University in Washington, DC, and a master’s degree in Economics from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

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Publications

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Book Chapter

Navigating the patriarchal politics of institutions: Positioning women and gender equality at the center of agricultural development institutions

2024Njuki, Jemimah; Kaaria, Susan; Kangogo, Ednah; Macharia, Kenneth; Malapit, Hazel; Mboo-Tchouawou, Michèle; Tanaka, Sonja
Details

Navigating the patriarchal politics of institutions: Positioning women and gender equality at the center of agricultural development institutions

While the lens of patriarchy has been used to understand the gendered power dynamics at different levels of society, research and development organizations have not been subjected to the same analysis. This chapter explores the gendered nature of organizations, using four key elements of patriarchal organizations (i) a gendered division of labor and tasks, (ii) gendered hierarchies, (ii) rigid rules governing performance, and (iv) privileging male dominated content and processes. We discuss the implications of these characteristics on women’s engagement in research, as well as on the positioning of gender research in organizations. Using two case studies, we discuss the key ways in which organizations can be more transformative. Although different organizations are implementing strategies to address gender inequalities in organizations, including through workplace policies and mentoring and leadership programs, we conclude that these initiatives fall short of addressing the structures within organizations and that perpetuate gender-based discrimination.

Year published

2024

Authors

Njuki, Jemimah; Kaaria, Susan; Kangogo, Ednah; Macharia, Kenneth; Malapit, Hazel; Mboo-Tchouawou, Michèle; Tanaka, Sonja

Citation

Njuki, Jemimah; Kaaria, Susan; Kangogo, Ednah; Macharia, Kenneth; Malapit, Hazel; Mboo-Tchouawou, Michèle; and Tanaka, Sonja. 2024. Navigating the patriarchal politics of institutions: Positioning women and gender equality at the center of agricultural development institutions. In Gender, Power and Politics in Agriculture, eds. Jemimah Njuki, Hale Ann Tufan, Vivian Polar, Hugo Campos, Monifa Morgan-Bell. Chapter 6, Pp. 95-113. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60986-2_6

Keywords

Gender; Institutions; Institutional Reform; Gender Statistics

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60986-2_6 Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Working Paper

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

2024
Seymour, Greg; Heckert, Jessica; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Paz, Florencia; Faas, Simone; Myers, Emily; Doss, Cheryl; Sinharoy, Sheela S.
…more Cheong, Yuk Fai; Yount, Kathryn M.; Hassan, Md. Zahidul; Hassan, Md. Imrul; Sharma, Sudhindra; Pokhrel, Pankaj; Sagastume, Mónica Dardón; Kanyanda, Shelton S. E.; Vundru, Wilbert D.; Moylan, Heather
Details

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 50×2030 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.

Year published

2024

Authors

Seymour, Greg; Heckert, Jessica; Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Paz, Florencia; Faas, Simone; Myers, Emily; Doss, Cheryl; Sinharoy, Sheela S.; Cheong, Yuk Fai; Yount, Kathryn M.; Hassan, Md. Zahidul; Hassan, Md. Imrul; Sharma, Sudhindra; Pokhrel, Pankaj; Sagastume, Mónica Dardón; Kanyanda, Shelton S. E.; Vundru, Wilbert D.; Moylan, Heather

Citation

Seymour, Greg; Heckert, Jessica; Quisumbing, Agnes; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth; Malapit, Hazel; Paz, Florencia; Faas, Simone; Myers, Emily; et al. 2024. Measuring women’s empowerment in national surveys: Development of the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS). Discussion Paper 2254. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute

Keywords

Gender Equality; Women; Women’s Empowerment; Data; Agricultural Development; Livelihoods; Surveys

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Enhancing agency and empowerment in agricultural development projects: A synthesis of mixed methods impact evaluations from the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2)

2024
Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Seymour, Greg; Heckert, Jessica; Doss, Cheryl; Johnson, Nancy L.; Rubin, Deborah; Thai, Giang; Ramani, Gayathri V.
…more Myers, Emily; GAAP2 for pro-WEAI Study Team
Details

Enhancing agency and empowerment in agricultural development projects: A synthesis of mixed methods impact evaluations from the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2)

Development interventions increasingly include women’s empowerment and gender equality among their objectives, but evaluating their impact has been stymied by the lack of measures that are comparable across interventions. This paper synthesizes the findings of 11 mixed-methods impact evaluations of agricultural development projects from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that were part of the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2). As part of GAAP2, qualitative and quantitative data were used to develop and validate the multidimensional project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), which was used to assess the impact of GAAP2 projects on women’s empowerment. This paper assesses the extent to which: (1) a two- to three-year agricultural development project can contribute to women’s empowerment; and (2) a suite of methods comprising a standardized quantitative measure of women’s empowerment and a set of qualitative protocols, can evaluate such impacts. Our synthesis finds that the most common positive significant impacts were on the instrumental and collective agency indicators that comprise pro-WEAI, owing to the group-based approaches used. We found few projects significantly improved intrinsic agency, even among those with explicitly stated objectives to change gender norms. Unsurprisingly, we find mixed, and mostly null impacts on aggregate pro-WEAI, with positive impacts more likely in the South Asian, rather than African, cases. Our results highlight the need for projects to design their strategies specifically for empowerment, rather than assume that projects aiming to reach and benefit women automatically empower them. Our study also shows the value of a suite of methods containing a common metric to compare empowerment impacts and qualitative protocols to understand and contextualize these impacts.

Year published

2024

Authors

Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Seymour, Greg; Heckert, Jessica; Doss, Cheryl; Johnson, Nancy L.; Rubin, Deborah; Thai, Giang; Ramani, Gayathri V.; Myers, Emily; GAAP2 for pro-WEAI Study Team

Citation

Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Seymour, Greg; Heckert, Jessica; Myers, Emily; GAAP2 for pro-WEAI Study Team; et al. 2024. Enhancing agency and empowerment in agricultural development projects: A synthesis of mixed methods impact evaluations from the Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2). Journal of Rural Studies 108(May 2024): 103295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103295

Keywords

Southern Asia; Sub-saharan Africa; Agricultural Development; Gender Equality; Women’s Empowerment; Data

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103295 Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

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.

Making a difference: Dumplings and development
IFPRI Research Blog
 | 
July 28, 2023

Making a difference: Dumplings and development

By Emily Myers, Eleanor Jones, and Hazel Malapit

The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) offers a variety of ingredients for local insights.

Developing a Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 23, 2023

Developing a Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems

By Jessica Heckert, Agnes Quisumbing, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Greg Seymour, Hazel Malapit, Florencia Paz, Sheela Sinharoy, Kathryn M. Yount, and Heather Moylan

Closing the gender data gap in agricultural development.

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Events

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

 | 

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. […]

Global Food 50/50 Launch Event
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

March 7, 2024, 9:00 – 10:30 am

Global Food 50/50 Launch Event

Virtual Event: March 7, 2024 at 9:00am-10:30am EST. This launch event seminar will present key findings from the report and explore how this new accountability mechanism can empower a broader movement to demand more equitable and inclusive organizations across the global food system.

Introducing the new Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS)
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

February 22, 2024, 9:00 – 10:30 am

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

Virtual Event: February 22, 2024 at 9:00am-10:30am EST. This event will present the WEMNS metric, review the development of the tool, and discuss its use to advance women’s empowerment. A panel of stakeholders from government and national statistical offices and from multilateral organizations will discuss the potential of WEMNS for promoting and monitoring women’s empowerment as part of national statistical surveys.

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News

April 19, 2023 | In the News

Crisis resilience ‘critical’ to stem rising hunger (SciDev.Net)

“A shift towards permanent ‘crisis resilience’ from short-term aid is crucial to mitigate increasingly frequent shocks to the global food system and tackle rising global hunger, say food policy researchers,” writes SciDev.Net in a piece featuring IFPRI’s 2023 Global Food Policy Research.  “Crises, shocks, and volatility are no longer exceptions and may become the new normal,” says Johan Swinnen, […]

April 07, 2020 | Press Release

2020 Global Food Policy Report: Inclusive Food Systems Needed to Boost Development, Resilience

Washington, D.C. – The rapid spread of COVID-19 and efforts to contain it are generating growing concerns that food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty may escalate, particularly among marginalized people in the developing world. To build more resilient, climate-smart, and healthy food systems that help people withstand these types of shocks policymakers must prioritize making them […]

August 10, 2019 | In the News

Use agri index to measure women empowerment, agencies urged (Philippines News Agency)

Philippines News Agency reported on the pro-Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and the importance of using this index in agricultural development projects. The article quoted Senior Research Coordinator, Hazel Malapit, who elaborated on pro-WEAI and added that for a project to empower women, its goal must be to strengthen the beneficiaries’ ability to make […]

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