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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

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. 

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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.

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Madagascar

countries and regions

Publications

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Working Paper

The enabling environment for large-scale food fortification in Madagascar

2024Resnick, Danielle
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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

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Opinion Piece

Back to the brink? Madagascar’s polarizing presidential elections

2023Resnick, Danielle
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Back to the brink? Madagascar’s polarizing presidential elections

Since the beginning of October, Madagascar’s capital city of Antananarivo, has been on edge. A massive military and police presence hovers along Independence Avenue in front of the mayor’s office to deter demonstrators from protesting the upcoming November 16 presidential elections. Despite the use of tear gas, batons, arrests, and widespread allegations of human rights abuses, the protesters have not been discouraged. Many are being mobilized to show different forms of resistance — on the streets and via social media — by the 10 opposition parties called the Collectif des candidats (group of candidates) who claim the incumbent president, Andry Rajoelina, is not qualified to run for a second term and that the electoral process cannot be trusted. While Rajoelina’s orange signs, featuring the party and face of the “Prezida” are plastered across the capital, most of the Collectif candidates have intentionally decided to pursue an electoral boycott. They insist that the upcoming elections be postponed and are taking the country to the threshold of civil conflict to achieve their goals.

Year published

2023

Authors

Resnick, Danielle

Citation

Resnick, Danielle. 2023. Back to the brink? Madagascar’s polarizing presidential elections. Brookings Institute Commentary. First available on November 16, 2023. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/back-to-the-brink-madagascars-polarizing-presidential-elections/

Country/Region

Madagascar

Keywords

Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Africa; Democracy; Political Systems; Famine; Poverty; Fragility

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Opinion Piece

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Journal Article

Does bilateral trade in cereals within SADC reflect virtual trade in water between countries with different water endowments?

2023Matchaya, Greenwell C.; Garcia, R. J.; Traoré, F.
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Does bilateral trade in cereals within SADC reflect virtual trade in water between countries with different water endowments?

This paper examines intraregional bilateral trade in virtual water embedded in cereal flows between the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) states. A gravity model is employed to examine whether annual bilateral trade depends on differences in water endowments, but also includes socio-economic and political determinants that affect trade. There is evidence that the abundance of water resources in a country influences trade for a product that is water dependent. Thus, the adverse effect of water scarcity in a country may be ameliorated by encouraging exports of water-intensive cereal crops where water is in abundance and imported where water is scarce.

Year published

2023

Authors

Matchaya, Greenwell C.; Garcia, R. J.; Traoré, F.

Citation

Matchaya, Greenwell; Garcia, R. J.; Traore, F. 2023. Does bilateral trade in cereals within SADC reflect virtual trade in water between countries with different water endowments? Water International, 25p. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2023.2255822]

Country/Region

Botswana; Lesotho; Madagascar; Malawi; Mauritius; Mozambique; Namibia; South Africa; Zambia; Zimbabwe

Keywords

Eswatini; Tanzania; International Trade; Cereal Crops; Virtual Water; Exports; Imports; Agricultural Trade; Sadc Countries; Water Resources; Water Scarcity; Water Demand; Water Availability; Policies; Models

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2023.2255822 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Datasets

Dataset

ASTI Madagascar Database

2014Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators
Details

ASTI Madagascar Database

This dataset includes national-level time series data on researcher capacity by qualification level, age bracket, discipline mix, and commodity, as well as a detailed breakdown of agricultural research investment across government, higher education, nonprofit, and (where possible) private for-profit agricultural research agencies. These data were derived through a series of primary survey rounds conducted by IFPRI’s Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) and in close collaboration with a large network of national collaborators. The ASTI data constitute a powerful resource for national and regional research managers, policymakers, donor organizations, and other stakeholders. ASTI’s key indicators provide both a diagnostic tool for assessing the allocation and use of existing resources and an advocacy tool for increasing resources and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of resource use. The ASTI website offers interactive pages that allow users to access country-level time series data, make cross-country comparisons, create graphs, and download country datasets and publications as well as detailed institutional information on agencies involved in agricultural research. The interactive benchmarking tool on the ASTI website is a convenient map-based instrument allowing users to make cross-country comparisons and rankings based on a wide set of financial and human resource indicators. The detailed ASTI datasets are available in an easy-to-use data download tool. Detailed information on definitions, methodology, and calculation procedures are available at www.asti.cgiar.org

Year published

2014

Authors

Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators

Citation

Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators. 2014. ASTI Madagascar database. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. http://www.asti.cgiar.org/madagascar. Harvard Dataverse. Version 1.

Country/Region

Madagascar

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Agricultural Research

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-3.0

Source

Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Dataset

Projects

Food Security Portal

Food Security Portal

Volatile food prices, climate-change-driven shocks, conflict, economic downturns, and high population growth continue to raise serious concerns about food security and nutrition in many parts……