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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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Where we work

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

IFPRI Insights: March 2023

March 16th, 2023
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Ukraine one year later: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered global disruptions in markets for key food crops and fertilizers, threatening food security worldwide. While high international food prices have moderated over time, domestic price levels remain high in many low- and middle-income countries. With no end to the war in sight and potential further shocks to food systems, uncertainty continues to hang over agricultural markets.

One year on, IFPRI maintains focus on the ongoing conflict and its impact on global agricultural markets. Check the latest posts in our special blog series on the Russia-Ukraine war and global food security:

Ukraine one year later: Impacts on global food security 

The Russia-Ukraine war after a year: Impacts on fertilizer production, prices, and trade flows 

Assessing tight global wheat stocks and their role in price volatility 

And in case you missed it, view the recording of the latest IFPRI-AMIS seminar Ukraine one year later: The impact of the war on agricultural markets and food security.

(Visit our spotlight page for more)
 How USD 10 billion can transform food systems in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria: Report launch 
Thursday March 16th, 2023
9:00 AM EDT
 Groundwater: Potential and pitfalls for Africa
Monday March 20th, 2023
8:00 AM EDT
 Water & SDGs – Downscaling WATer relevant SDGs (DWAT-SDGs)
Monday March 20th, 2023
10:00 AM EDT
 Science and innovation for food systems transformation – Follow-up to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit
Tuesday April 11th, 2023
9:30 AM EDT
 2023 Global Food Policy Report launch
Thursday April 13th, 2023
9:00 AM EDT (more details coming soon)
International Women’s Day: International Women’s Day 2023 (March 8), under the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” recognizes and celebrates the women and girls who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education. To mark IWD and explore this important theme, we asked colleagues across IFPRI to share examples of innovation and technology they’ve seen work for improving gender equality and strengthening gender research capacity, and what research tells us about the rapidly changing landscape of gender and technology in food systems.

Check this interactive story to see their answers. 
War Economy: Channing Arndt, Xinshen Diao, Paul Dorosh, Karl Pauw, and James Thurlow assess the implications of rising food prices due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war on developing countries and global poverty and food insecurity. Findings published in Global Food Security show that 27.2 million more people have been pushed into poverty, and 22.3 million more into hunger. (Read Article)
Games and Commons: Thomas Falk, Wei Zhang, and Ruth Meinzen-Dick explore how experiential learning through games can trigger collective behavioral and institutional change, potentially leading to more sustainable commons management. In a new paper in Ecology & Society, they present a conceptual framework that can provide a structure for future impact assessments of experiential learning. (Read Article)
Take Your Vitamins: Optimal nutrition is crucial in a child’s first 1,000 days and can mitigate risk of child mortality and poor developmental outcomes. A new study by Lieven Huybregts and colleagues published in PLOS Medicine shows that prenatal and postnatal balanced energy–protein (BEP) supplementation improve children’s size at birth and lead to better growth in the second half of infancy. (Read Article)
Size Matters: In a new paper in Agricultural Systems, Avinash Kishore and coauthors find that small farm size limits agriculture’s poverty reduction potential in Eastern India even with irrigation-led intensification. Smallholder farmers require diversified portfolios of rural on- and off-farm income-generating opportunities and benefit more from targeted investments. (Read Article)
Get Schooled: Drawing on evidence that cash transfers boost educational outcomes for poor children on average, Katrina Kosec and colleagues, in a paper published in Economics of Education Review, investigate which aspects of educational performance are most responsive to community-based conditional cash transfers in Tanzania. (Read Article)
Cash, COVID, coup, crisis: It isn’t easy to find a ray of hope in Myanmar’s tragedy, but a study just published in The Journal of Nutrition finds a glimmer of it—demonstrating that nutrition-sensitive social protection can provide significant nutritional resilience even after a program ends, and even in an exceptionally dire economic crisis. Authors Derek Headey and Elisa Maffioli explain. (Read Blog
Best tools for equality and women’s empowerment in value chains: “When women are able to participate in value chains, on an equal footing with men, the benefits can extend far beyond steady jobs and increased incomes.” Kate Ambler and Jennifer Twyman on why engaging women in markets and value chains is a high priority on the global agenda for gender equality. (Read Blog)
We’re all in this together!: Upeksha Hettiarachchi discusses the relationships and dynamics between upstream and downstream users of water around Lake Beseka, a shallow saline lake in the East African Rift Valley of Ethiopia, who each face their own set of challenges with managing the lake’s continuing expansion. (Read Blog)
IFPRI Director General Johan Swinnen and BIMSTEC Secretary General Tenzin Lekphell signed a Memorandum of Understanding on March 5, 2023 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo: The Financial Express. See more photos from the visit here.
IFPRI, BIMSTEC join hands to advance causes of food securityIn an interview with Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)Johan Swinnen, IFPRI Director General and Managing Director, Systems Transformation, CGIAR, answered questions about food security in Bangladesh and globally and spoke about the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed between IFPRI and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) on March 5, 2023.
Read press-release and see more coverage of the event in The Financial Express, The Daily Star, The Daily Sun, The Daily Observer
The Ukraine-Russia grain deal is about to expireThe international agreement that allows Ukraine to export wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and other agricultural products across the globe is set to expire on March 18. The World spoke with Joseph Glauber, IFPRI senior research fellow, for a new podcast episode about how the deal has affected global grain prices, and what issues Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the United Nations will be negotiating in order to extend the agreement. 
The impact of the Ukraine war on food supplies: “It could have been so much worse”NPR interviewed Joseph Glauber, IFPRI senior research fellow, on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to discuss how the war has affected global food security during the past year, where things stand today, and why the worst predictions have not come to pass.
 Reducing food loss and waste is a triple-win opportunity: for our climate, our wallets, and in the combat for ending world hunger.” – Jacob Jensen, Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries of Denmark.

 If we had a half of the food loss and waste we have today at the same production level, there would be sufficient amount of fruits and vegetables available in the food supply chain to cover the recommended intake globally.” – Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

(Event: Food loss and waste in fruit and vegetable supply chains)
 “We should keep in mind that we don’t know where the next risk or shock will come from. You can be self-sufficient, but if you have a war, self-sufficiency is not going to solve the problem. Similar [situation may occur] due to weather shocks—and these are going to be more and more frequent. We have seen countries like Morocco that lost 30% of their grain production last year…There is no one solution that is going to make you protected from every risk, and it’s only through markets that you can start to distribute those risks.” – David Laborde, Division Director, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

(Event: Ukraine one year later: The impact of the war on agricultural markets and food security)
 Is market inclusion really conducive to women’s empowerment? We won’t know unless we measure it. This requires tools that identify constraints women and men face along the various nodes of food systems.” – Hazel Malapit, Senior Research Coordinator, IFPRI.

(Event: Introducing pro-WEAI complementary indicators for nutrition- sensitive agriculture and market inclusion projects
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