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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

Kalyani Raghunathan

Kalyani Raghunathan is Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in New Delhi, India. Her research lies at the intersection of agriculture, gender, social protection, and public health and nutrition, with a specific focus on South Asia and Africa. 

Where we work

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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 Regional Programs

IFPRI Country Programs

Research by country and region

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partnerships

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) works with partners from around the world to address several challenges we face today. These challenges are categorized into five divisions: Global Health, Global Development Division; Global Growth & Opportunity Division; United States Division; and Global Policy & Advocacy Division. BMGF seeks to understand inequalities throughout the world and works to create change through its influence and investments.

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Projects

Strengthening the Economic Evaluation of Strategies for Nutrition (SEEMS-Nutrition)

Strengthening the Economic Evaluation of Strategies for Nutrition (SEEMS-Nutrition)

SEEMS-Nutrition supports the scaling up of future solutions to enhance and sustain nutritious food systems in a rapidly evolving environment of decreasing child and maternal……

South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative (SANI)

South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative (SANI)

The South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative (SANI), aims to bring data and evidence to policy and program communities for supporting decision-making for optimal nutrition for……

Political Economy of Large-Scale Food Fortification

Political Economy of Large-Scale Food Fortification

Despite broad acknowledgement by the research community that large-scale food fortification (LSFF) is a cost-effective intervention to address micronutrient deficiencies, the uptake and implementation of……

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Publications

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Journal Article

How do women’s empowerment metrics measure up? A comparative analysis

2024Bageant, Elizabeth; Lentz, Erin; Narayanan, Sudha; Jensen, Nathan; Lepariyo, Watson
Details

How do women’s empowerment metrics measure up? A comparative analysis

Research has identified women’s empowerment as a critical factor for nutritional outcomes and a priority area for understanding women’s mental health status. At the same time, there is no consensus on how empowerment should be measured. The surrounding debate has produced several empowerment metrics that are widely used, yet we know little about whether they can be substituted for one another or their respective strengths and weaknesses. Using data collected from a single sample of women from rural, northern Kenya, we compare five empowerment metrics: The Project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) and associated Health and Nutrition Module (HN), Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI), Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index (WELI), and the Survey Based Women’s Empowerment Index (SWPER). The metrics have shared theoretical origins and are commonly used in the food, nutrition and health spaces to study rural women’s lives across low- and middle-income countries. We examine the metrics’ characteristics, distributions, pairwise correlations and capacity of each metric to predict outcomes often associated with the concept of empowerment: body mass index (BMI) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). We find striking differences between these common empowerment metrics. The metrics’ correlations with one another are highly variable as are the predictive capacities for both outcomes. Further, our analysis finds that the choice of metric can dramatically influence which individuals are identified as empowered. In sum, our results suggest that while these metrics are used in remarkably similar ways to understand rural women’s empowerment and its consequences, unless they are computed with many identical survey questions, the metrics do not capture the same underlying concept and are not interchangeable. We recommend that our work be replicated elsewhere and caution should be taken when implementing and interpreting research using these metrics, as findings may be highly sensitive to the choice of metric.

Year published

2024

Authors

Bageant, Elizabeth; Lentz, Erin; Narayanan, Sudha; Jensen, Nathan; Lepariyo, Watson

Citation

Bageant, Elizabeth; Lentz, Erin; Narayanan, Sudha; Jensen, Nathan; and Lepariyo, Watson. 2024. How do women’s empowerment metrics measure up? A comparative analysis. Food Policy 129(November 2024): 102764. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102764

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Women’s Empowerment; Nutrition; Mental Health; Women; Data

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102764 Source record

Project

Livestock

Record type

Journal Article

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Dataset

Survey of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Agri-Food Value Chains: Network-Based Recruitment Approach in Uganda

2024International Food Policy Research Institute
Details

Survey of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Agri-Food Value Chains: Network-Based Recruitment Approach in Uganda

The datasets and questionnaires included in this package are derived from the second phase of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) project titled “Digital Financial Services Adoption among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Midstream of Agricultural Value Chains.” This project focused on midstream actors within the arabica coffee and soybean value chains in Uganda, utilizing tailored surveys to assess their financial capabilities and constraints. The surveys were conducted in May and June 2023 across the Mbale, Kasese, and Lira districts. The data collection was carried out iteratively to gather information about intermediary actors at various stages of the agri-food value chain. In randomly selected villages within the primary study districts, a small group of farmers participated in a brief survey to identify intermediary actors to whom they had sold commodities in the past 30 days. The identified intermediary actors were then contacted and interviewed using a comprehensive intermediary actor survey. In total, 433 coffee farmers and 247 soybean farmers were interviewed in Uganda. The midstream actor sample for the coffee value chain includes 1,401 traders, 111 processors, 334 wholesalers, and 16 aggregators. For the soybean value chain, the sample consists of 507 traders, 2 processors, 280 wholesalers, 9 storage facilities, and 37 aggregators.

Year published

2024

Authors

International Food Policy Research Institute

Citation

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2024. Survey of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Agri-Food Value Chains: Network-Based Recruitment Approach in Uganda. Washington, DC: IFPRI [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EXJKYH. Harvard Dataverse. Version 1.

Country/Region

Uganda

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Agrifood Systems; Small and Medium Enterprises; Value Chains; Networks; Soybeans; Coffee

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/exjkyh Source record

Record type

Dataset

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Dataset

Survey of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Agri-Food Value Chains: Network-Based Recruitment Approach in Bangladesh

2024International Food Policy Research Institute
Details

Survey of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Agri-Food Value Chains: Network-Based Recruitment Approach in Bangladesh

The datasets and questionnaires in this package come from the second phase of IFPRI’s “Digital Financial Services Adoption among SMEs in the Midstream of Agricultural Value Chains” project. This phase focused on midstream actors in the rice and potato value chains in Bangladesh, using tailored surveys to explore their financial capabilities and constraints. The surveys were conducted between June and August 2023 in the Bogra and Rangpur districts. The data collection was iterative, designed to capture insights from intermediary actors across different segments of the agri-food value chain. In randomly selected villages within our primary study areas, a brief farmer survey was used to identify intermediary actors they had sold commodities to in the last 30 days. These identified intermediaries were then contacted and interviewed using a more comprehensive survey. In Bangladesh, 280 rice farmers and 254 potato farmers participated in the farmer surveys. For the midstream actors, the sample includes 1,066 traders, 456 processors, and 220 wholesalers in the rice value chain, and 1,117 traders, 1 processor, 235 wholesalers, and 1 aggregator in the potato value chain.

Year published

2024

Authors

International Food Policy Research Institute

Citation

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2024. Survey of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Agri-Food Value Chains: Network-Based Recruitment Approach in Bangladesh. Washington, DC: IFPRI [dataset]. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/OBHUQ5. Harvard Dataverse. Version 1.

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Agrifood Systems; Small and Medium Enterprises; Value Chains; Networks; Potatoes; Rice

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.7910/dvn/obhuq5 Source record

Record type

Dataset

Events

Release of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Ghana
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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August 24, 2023, 5:30 – 7:00 am

Release of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Ghana

Event: August 24, 2023 – 5:30 AM- 7:00 AM EDT. IFPRI is co-hosting the release of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Ghana under the Nexus Project in partnership with the Ghana Statistical Service and the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research.

A Decade of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI): Lessons from Using Empowerment Metrics
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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February 16, 2022, 9:30 – 11:00 am

A Decade of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI): Lessons from Using Empowerment Metrics

Virtual Event: Feb 16, 2022 – 09:30 AM to 11:00 AM EST. This Special Event will reflect on what has been accomplished and learned by applying WEAI and pro-WEAI in diverse contexts.

Tackling child undernutrition at scale: Insights from national and subnational success cases
IFPRI Policy Seminar

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April 1, 2021, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Tackling child undernutrition at scale: Insights from national and subnational success cases

Virtual Event: APR 1, 2021 – 09:30 AM TO 11:00 AM EDT. Lessons from these deep research programs offer hope that big change is possible and provide specific direction for countries striving to accelerate progress on nutrition

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Blogs

Revisiting development strategies under climate uncertainty: Insights from Malawi
IFPRI Blog
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July 19, 2024

Revisiting development strategies under climate uncertainty: Insights from Malawi

By Askar Mukashov and Eleanor Jones

Does the threat of climate change significantly undermine strategies focusing on agriculture?

Evaluating impacts: Lessons from food systems interventions across Africa and Asia
IFPRI Blog
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July 16, 2024

Evaluating impacts: Lessons from food systems interventions across Africa and Asia

By Jef L. Leroy, Lynnette Neufeld, Stella Nordhagen, and Sydney Honeycutt

Transforming food systems is promising but complex, requiring strong evidence and rigorous evaluations to ensure effective interventions.

Adapt, assess, progress: Integrating measures of women’s empowerment into rural development projects
IFPRI Blog
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May 13, 2024

Adapt, assess, progress: Integrating measures of women’s empowerment into rural development projects

By Carlo Azzarri, Sedi-Anne Boukaka, Jessica Heckert, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Greg Seymour, and Sara Savastano

A new tool developed by IFPRI and IFAD.

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