International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)

International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) promotes evidence-informed equitable, inclusive and sustainable development. 3ie supports the generation and effective use of high-quality evidence to inform decision-making and improve the lives of people living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries. 3ie provides guidance and support to produce, synthesize and quality assure evidence of what works, for whom, how, why, and at what cost.

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Picture-Based Crop Insurance (PBI)

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Publications

Working Paper

Crop diversification and nutritional resilience amid conflicts: Evidence from farmers in Myanmar

2026Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Masias, Ian; Minten, Bart; van Asselt, Joanna; Naing, Phyo Thandar; Ei Win, Hnin

Details

Crop diversification and nutritional resilience amid conflicts: Evidence from farmers in Myanmar

Resilient food and nutrition systems that support dietary diversity are central to improving welfare outcomes and fostering the formation of human capital, with lasting implications for socioeconomic development. Historically, while smallholders in developing countries have accessed food both from diversified farms or kitchen gardens, markets have increasingly become the more dominant source of diet diversity as agrifood systems continue their transformation. Yet little is known regarding how intensifying conflicts and social instability affect these linkages between agrifood systems and households’ dietary diversity. Addressing this knowledge gap is particularly relevant for countries like Myanmar, which is characterized not only by escalating conflicts in recent years but also by relatively lower levels of overall crop diversification and dietary diversity at the national level compared to many other countries in East and Southeast Asia. By using unique panel datasets from Myanmar that cover significant spatiotemporal variation in conflict intensity and addressing the potential endogeneity of crop diversification, we provide new evidence on the resilience of household dietary diversity in conflict-affected settings. We find that increased incidence of violent events at township levels (a proxy for conflict intensity) significantly lowers household dietary diversity during the post-monsoon season, particularly the diversity derived from purchased food items. These adverse effects are relatively more pronounced for healthier food items, such as pulses/legumes/nuts and vegetables/leaves. However, the negative impacts of conflicts on dietary diversity in the post-monsoon season are significantly mitigated by greater diversity in food crop production for farm households during the preceding monsoon season. Results are robust across different measurements of crop diversification and violent events. These findings suggest that in conflict-prone developing countries like Myanmar, household-level crop diversification remains an important strategy for farmers to safeguard household dietary diversity.

Year published

2026

Authors

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Masias, Ian; Minten, Bart; van Asselt, Joanna; Naing, Phyo Thandar; Ei Win, Hnin

Citation

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Masias, Ian; Minten, Bart; van Asselt, Joanna; Naing, Phyo Thander; and Win, Hnin Ei. 2026. Crop diversification and nutritional resilience amid conflicts: Evidence from farmers in Myamar. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2406. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/181989

Country/Region

Myanmar

Keywords

South-eastern Asia; Conflicts; Diversification; Diet; Crop Production; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report

2026Mahrt, Kristi; Schmidt, Emily; Sikas-Iha, Helmtrude; Andam, Kwaw S.

Details

Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report

The Papua New Guinea Low-Skill Urban Wage Survey (PLUWS 2025) was designed to fill an information gap on low-skill wage employment and dietary purchasing power in select urban areas across Papua New Guinea. Telephone interviews were conducted from June 2nd through November 10th of 2025, that purposefully interviewed urban wage earners in low- or low-medium1 skill occupations in cities where the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) is also collecting monthly fresh food prices. In doing so, the survey collected information from individuals based in Port Moresby, Kokopo, Lae, Mount Hagen, Banz, Goroka, and Daru, with a focus of achieving a total survey sample that supported gender disaggregated analysis of wage rates, payment preferences, purchasing power, and household and individual characteristics of low- and medium-low skill wage earners. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) partnered with a large PNG mobile phone company, Digicel, who randomly selected mobile phone clients from comprehensive lists of users geographically mapped to each of the urban cities identified for survey implementation. Two sampling strategies were implemented (described in more detail below) which resulted in a lower-bound (e.g., greater share of informal employment, less training or education, and lower wage rates) and upper-bound sample of low-wage earners. The final survey sample consists of 590 low- and medium-low skilled wage workers. Of which, approximately 2/3 of survey respondents are men (69% men and 31% women). The survey asked questions about individual characteristics (gender, age, marital status, education, etc.) of the respondent and the respondent’s household (assets, household composition, decision-making regarding earned incomes, etc.); characteristics of respondents’ employment; preferences for wage payment in money or in-kind; and the respondents’ diet quality. This report provides results tables and a discussion of the descriptive statistics by gender and sample approach (lower-bound and upper-bound) of low-skill wage workers.

Year published

2026

Authors

Mahrt, Kristi; Schmidt, Emily; Sikas-Iha, Helmtrude; Andam, Kwaw S.

Citation

Mahrt, Kristi; Schmidt, Emily; and Sikas-Iha, Helmtrude; and Andam, Kwaw S. 2026. Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report. Papua New Guinea Food Policy Strengthening Working Paper 11. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/181719

Country/Region

Papua New Guinea

Keywords

Melanesia; Oceania; Surveys; Labour; Households

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Tracing the economic impacts of the 2025 US tariff increases and evaluating possible responses: An analysis for Papua New Guinea

2026Pal, Barun Deb; Andam, Kwaw S.; Pepae, Sanja

Details

Tracing the economic impacts of the 2025 US tariff increases and evaluating possible responses: An analysis for Papua New Guinea

Restrictions on global trade can contribute to adverse economic outcomes in developing countries. Perverse outcomes include reduced export opportunities and higher input costs for essential goods. Policymakers in Papua New Guinea (PNG), as in other developing countries across the world, have therefore been concerned about global trade uncertainty as geopolitical tensions and protectionist policies have escalated throughout 2025. In April 2025, the United States (US) implemented a new tariff policy that included a baseline 10% tariff on goods from all countries, including PNG, along with higher “reciprocal tariffs” on countries with large trade deficits. The PNG government confirmed it would not retaliate but would instead pivot trade toward Asia-Pacific partners such as China, Indonesia, and Japan. In July 2025 PNG’s exports to the US were subjected to a 15% reciprocal tariff under an updated U.S. tariff schedule. In the ensuing months, some countries managed to finalize bilateral trade deals with US and reduced the tariff rates, while others are still under negotiations. According to the US trade policy 2025, the increment in reciprocal tariff on PNG is a result of the country’s failure to take sufficient steps to align with the US (The White House, 2025). In this note, we provide a rapid assessment of the potential impacts of US tariff hikes on PNG’s economy, specifically on trade, GDP, and household income. We consider the two following scenarios: Scenario 1—only US imposes additional tariffs (10 percent, 15 percent, and 30 percent), and PNG does not reciprocate. Scenario 2—PNG reciprocates with equivalent tariffs on the commodity import from the US. This note provides a rapid assessment of impact of US tariff policy on key macroeconomic indicators of PNG. This also helps derive quick policy insights into whether it would be advantageous for PNG to respond with higher tariffs or to accept the US’s higher tariff. Though US has imposed a 15% tariff on PNG’s export to US, due to uncertainty regarding the level of protectionism among the countries, this analysis also considers multiple tariff rates to understand the extent of economic losses in PNG due to relatively higher US tariff in the future.

Year published

2026

Authors

Pal, Barun Deb; Andam, Kwaw S.; Pepae, Sanja

Citation

Pal, Barun Deb; Andam, Kwaw S.; and Pepae, Sanja. 2026. Tracing the economic impacts of the 2025 US tariff increases and evaluating possible responses: An analysis for Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Food Policy Strengthening Working Paper 10. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/180800

Country/Region

Papua New Guinea

Keywords

Melanesia; Oceania; Capacity Building; Economic Impact; Tariffs; Trade Barriers; Policies; Trade; Computable General Equilibrium Models

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper