Overview
The Natural Resources and Resilience Unit (NRR) works at the intersection of nature, agriculture, and development to support tangible progress toward more equitable, resilient, and environmentally sustainable food systems that thrive on healthy ecosystems and deliver better nutrition, livelihoods, and economic opportunities for men and women. The highly interdisciplinary research group includes a range of social and biophysical scientists working at local, national, and global scales to tackle the challenge of preserving nature while improving food security and nutrition.
The Unit works with government agencies, NGOs, women’s organizations, and university partners to design and implement policy-relevant research
in areas including behavioral change interventions, participatory institutional analysis, gender-responsive climate change interventions, optimization of water/irrigation-energy-food-environmental systems, economics of biodiversity conservation, and digital innovations in the food systems space. This research uses a gender and social equity lens to address food and environmental system challenges. All of the Unit’s work includes a focus on measurable improvements in the resources, agency, and achievements of the world’s poorest women and men farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Areas of Focus
Equitable climate change strategies
Climate change and natural resource degradation impede our ability to meet food demand and nutrition needs. NRR researchers identify, pilot, and conduct impact assessments of gender- and nutrition-sensitive climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. NRR work also supports governance of climate action at multiple scales.
Natural resources–food system nexus
Growing competition and trade-offs across natural resources and food systems affect planetary and human health. To optimize water/irrigation-energy-food-environmental systems, NRR conducts economic analyses of technologies, policies, and institutions that reduce environmental degradation, strengthen resilience, improve food systems, and contribute to women’s empowerment. Researchers also evaluate the impact of behavioral change innovations.
Natural resource management
Biodiversity loss and water, land, and forest degradation affect agroecosystems and all life on Earth. To inform improved resource governance and decision-making, NRR provides economic valuation of biodiversity and environmental services, as well as systems and institutional analyses of natural resource management interventions and governance approaches.
Digital innovations
The growing digital divide increases inequity in use and access to resources and technologies to manage risks. To make the technologies and analytics needed for food system transformation more accessible, NRR researchers assess AI solutions for food and environmental systems, ways to reduce the digital gender gap, and human-centered approaches for designing solutions and testing prototypes.
Methods and tools
NRR researchers employ a wide range of methods and tools to address resource management, climate, and equity challenges. These include novel resilience metrics and frameworks, economic-environmental modeling and assessments of policy strategies, political economy analyses, institutional analyses, participatory action research, engagement with multistakeholder platforms, real-time agrifood system monitoring, and scenario and trade-off analyses using digital models.
Explore our research
Report
Food security and social assistance in Sudan during armed conflict: Evidence from the first round of the Sudan Rural Household Survey (November 2023–January 2024)
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Leaduma, Amos
Working Paper
Rural income diversification in Rwanda: Opportunities and challenges
Working Paper
Assessing agricultural extension agent digital readiness in Rwanda
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Essential Reading
The Russia-Ukraine conflict and global food security
Engaging women’s groups to improve nutrition: Findings from an evaluation of the Jeevika multisectoral convergence pilot in Saharsa, Bihar
