IFPRI CGIAR
Subscribe

Back

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

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

Where we work

Back

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

Subscribe

regions

IFPRI works with partners in Africa at the country, regional, and continental levels to provide cutting edge, policy-relevant research on food and nutrition security for policymakers, development partners, and stakeholders. Sharing this research and engaging through capacity building and dialogue informs effective policies, programs, and investments to help ensure that all people have access to safe, sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably grown food. The Africa Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal, provides an on-the-ground presence to support local research and capacity building as well as partnership building for sustainably reducing poverty and ending malnutrition.

VISIT AFRICA WEBSITE

Contact

Eastern and Southern Africa Office (ESAO):
IFPRI c/o ILRI
P.O. Box 5689
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Phone: +251 (0) 11-617-2500
Fax: +251 (0) 11-646-2927
(use the (0) only when dialing from within Ethiopia)
Email: ifpri-AddisAbaba@cgiar.org

West and Central Africa Office (WCAO):
Titre 3396 Lot #2
Dakar Almadies – BP 24063
Senegal
Tel: +221.33.869.9800
Email: ifpri-dakar@cgiar.org
Website: africa.ifpri.info

Our experts

Samuel Benin

Samuel Benin

Acting, Director for Africa, Development
Strategies and Governance, Africa

Elodie Becquey

Elodie Becquey

Senior Research Fellow, Africa,
Nutrition, Diets, and Health

John M. Ulimwengu

John M. Ulimwengu

Senior Research Fellow, Africa,
Development Strategies and Governance

Taddese Zerfu

Taddese Zerfu

Research Fellow, Africa,
Development Strategies and Governance

Projects

Ethiopian NIPN Technical Advisory Project (ENTAP)

Ethiopian NIPN Technical Advisory Project (ENTAP)

The Ethiopia NIPN Technical Advisory Project (ENTAP) is embedded in the Compact 2025 initiative for ending hunger and undernutrition by 2025. The objective of ENTAP……

Strengthening National Capacities and Policies for Food Systems Analysis and Transformation in Kenya, Ghana, and Senegal

Strengthening National Capacities and Policies for Food Systems Analysis and Transformation in Kenya, Ghana, and Senegal

Food systems encompass the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal of food……

Supporting ReSAKSS and CAADP

Supporting ReSAKSS and CAADP

From 2006 to 2020, IFPRI facilitated the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development……

View all Projects

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya

2025Lentz, E.; Jensen, Nathaniel D.; Lepariyo, Watson; Narayanan, S.; Bageant, E.
Details

Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya

Women face a disproportionate burden of malnutrition and food insecurity. Research has shown that women’s empowerment can buffer women against nutritional problems. This paper contributes to ongoing efforts to measure women’s empowerment that are both context-sensitive and universal, focusing on the recently developed Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI). Earlier research has shown it is both a valid construct and positively related to dietary and nutritional outcomes of women in South Asia. We establish that WENI is generalizable to agropastoral and pastoral Kenya, an area with substantially different livelihoods, food system, norms, and institutions than South Asia. We find that a locally contextualized WENI is strongly associated with women’s body mass index and dietary diversity as well as household level food insecurity. We also present findings for two shorter variations of WENI: an abbreviated WENI (A-WENI) and a cross context WENI (CC-WENI). A-WENI contains a small subset of WENI indicators identified using machine learning with South Asian data and therefore is context-specific. CC-WENI does not contain indicators specific to the validation context. We find that they perform comparably well with caveats. Thus, as use of WENI expands we recommend adapting WENI for in-depth analyses of women’s nutritional empowerment; using CC-WENI for cross-context comparisons; and using A-WENI for rapid appraisals of community level progress in a given context.

Year published

2025

Authors

Lentz, E.; Jensen, Nathaniel D.; Lepariyo, Watson; Narayanan, S.; Bageant, E.

Citation

Lentz, E., Jensen, N., Lepariyo, W., Narayanan, S. and Bageant, E. 2024. Adapting the women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya. World Development 188: 106887.

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Nutrition; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106887 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya

2025Lentz, Erin; Jensen, Nathan; Lepariyo, Watson; Narayanan, Sudha; Bageant, Elizabeth
Details

Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya

Women face a disproportionate burden of malnutrition and food insecurity. Research has shown that women’s empowerment can buffer women against nutritional problems. This paper contributes to ongoing efforts to measure women’s empowerment that are both context-sensitive and universal, focusing on the recently developed Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI). Earlier research has shown it is both a valid construct and positively related to dietary and nutritional outcomes of women in South Asia. We establish that WENI is generalizable to agropastoral and pastoral Kenya, an area with substantially different livelihoods, food system, norms, and institutions than South Asia. We find that a locally contextualized WENI is strongly associated with women’s body mass index and dietary diversity as well as household level food insecurity. We also present findings for two shorter variations of WENI: an abbreviated WENI (A-WENI) and a cross context WENI (CC-WENI). A-WENI contains a small subset of WENI indicators identified using machine learning with South Asian data and therefore is context-specific. CC-WENI does not contain indicators specific to the validation context. We find that they perform comparably well with caveats. Thus, as use of WENI expands we recommend adapting WENI for in-depth analyses of women’s nutritional empowerment; using CC-WENI for cross-context comparisons; and using A-WENI for rapid appraisals of community level progress in a given context.

Year published

2025

Authors

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

Citation

Lentz, Erin; Jensen, Nathan; Lepariyo, Watson; Narayanan, Sudha; and Bageant, Elizabeth. 2024. Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya. World Development 188: 106887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106887

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Women’s Empowerment; Malnutrition; Food Security; Livelihoods; Food Systems; Indicators

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106887 Source record

Project

Livestock

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Armed conflict and gendered participation in agrifood systems: Survey evidence from 29 African countries

2025Ronzani, Piero; Stojetz, Wolfgang; Azzarri, Carlo; Nico, Gianluigi; Mane, Erdgin; Brück, Tilman
Details

Armed conflict and gendered participation in agrifood systems: Survey evidence from 29 African countries

This paper provides empirical micro-level evidence on the gendered impacts of armed conflict on economic activity in agriculture and other sectors, combining large-N sex-disaggregated survey data with temporally and spatially disaggregated conflict event data from 29 African countries. We find that local conflict exposure is only weakly related to labour-force participation, but strongly reduces the total number of hours worked and increases engagement in the agricultural sector. These net impacts exist for both men and women. However, the reduction in hours worked is significantly greater among men, while the increase in agricultural activity is significantly greater among women. In the longer term, impacts of conflict on employment two years later are stronger when no more conflict ensues than if further conflict occurs, challenging the widespread idea of one-off conflict shocks fading away over time and suggesting that labour markets adapt to and absorb lasting conflict situations. Different types of conflict event have qualitatively similar impacts, which are strongest for explosions, such as from air strikes or landmines. Overall, our findings underline that armed conflict entails structural economic, social and institutional change, which creates complex, gendered impacts on economic activity.

Year published

2025

Authors

Ronzani, Piero; Stojetz, Wolfgang; Azzarri, Carlo; Nico, Gianluigi; Mane, Erdgin; Brück, Tilman

Citation

Ronzani, Piero; Stojetz, Wolfgang; Azzarri, Carlo; Nico, Gianluigi; Mane, Erdgin; and Brück, Tilman. 2025. Armed conflict and gendered participation in agrifood systems: Survey evidence from 29 African countries. Global Food Security 44: 100821. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100821

Keywords

Africa; Data; Gender; Labour Market; Armed Conflicts; Agriculture; Employment; Women’s Participation; Agrifood Systems

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100821 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Events

Extra-Ordinary Summit on Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programmes (CAADP)
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

January 9 to 11, 2025

Extra-Ordinary Summit on Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programmes (CAADP)

IFPRI is pleased to participate in the Extraordinary Summit on Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), organized by the African Union Commission and hosted by the Government of Uganda on January 9 to 11, 2025. The summit will focus on adopting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Strategy and Acton Plan for 2026-2035. This […]

Micronutrient Forum: 6th Global Conference
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

October 16 to 20, 2023

Micronutrient Forum: 6th Global Conference

Hybrid Conference: October 16, 2023 – 8:30 AM to October 20, 2023 – 5:00 PM CEST. IFPRI is pleased to participate in this year’s Micronutrient Forum 6th Global Conference, being held at the World Forum in The Hague October 16–20, with a focus on “Nutrition for Resilience (N4R).

Africa’s Food Systems Forum (AGRF) 2023 Summit
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

September 5 to 8, 2023

Africa’s Food Systems Forum (AGRF) 2023 Summit

Event: September 5, 2023 – 3:00 AM to September 8, 2023 – 7:30 AM EDT. IFPRI is participating in Africa’s Food Systems Forum (AGRF) 2023 Summit.

View all Events

News

September 06, 2023 | In the News

Unpacking the 2023 Africa agriculture assessment report (CNBC Africa) 

CNBC Africa interviewed John Ulimwengu, IFPRI Senior Research Fellow and the technical editor and lead researcher of the Africa Agriculture Status Report 2023, launched on September 6 at the Africa Food Systems Forum (AGRF). .  The Report titled “Empowering Africa’s Food Systems for the Future” highlights the ways in which Africa is uniquely positioned to redefine its future and […]

March 15, 2023 | In the News

Senegal: Experts work on the functioning of the elements of the food system (Senegal Press Agency) 

Senegal Press Agency, in a summary of the two-day event launch of the “Food system” project at the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research (ISRA), writes that the workshop has contributed to a better understanding of the functioning of the Senegalese food system along various dimensions stretching from production to consumption.  This workshop was organized in […]

December 10, 2021 | In the News

Global health leaders to address drivers of unhealthy food systems (University of Sidney)

University of Sydney (Charles Perkins Centre) published a press release about the 2021 Global Food Governance Conference that will address the political, economic and colonial systems and corporate structures that produce harmful food systems. Senior research coordinator, Namukolo Covic, in her keynote address will discuss outcomes from the UN Food Systems Summit. Earlier this year, Covic wrote that the summit […]

View all News

Blogs

A glimpse into the gendered impacts of COVID-19 in rural Kenya
IFPRI Blog
 | 
August 16, 2022

A glimpse into the gendered impacts of COVID-19 in rural Kenya

By Harriet Mawia

Effects of lost income and food insecurity linger, particularly for for women, a study shows.

Global Food 50/50 Report: Assessing gender, diversity, and power in food system organizations
IFPRI Blog
 | 
October 27, 2021

Global Food 50/50 Report: Assessing gender, diversity, and power in food system organizations

By Karla Estrada

A new and necessary accountability measure for gender equality.

Transform Nutrition West Africa: Time to build on the momentum
IFPRI Blog
 | 
September 17, 2021

Transform Nutrition West Africa: Time to build on the momentum

By Roosmarijn Verstraeten

A four-country project's foundation for knowledge sharing and policy collaboration.

View all Blogs