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From Targets to Action: In their paper in the new The Lancet series on maternal and child nutrition, Stuart Gillespie, Purnima Menon, and Marie Ruel explore how the evidence base for nutrition, health, food systems, social protection, water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions has changed since 2013. They identify priorities for making global nutrition progress in the next decade and meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. ( Read Article)
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A Holistic Approach: Conservation agriculture can improve the adaptive capacity of cropping systems to climate stress, according to research by Adam Komarek, Christian Thierfelder, and Peter Steward. Using historical data on weather and yields from Malawi, they found that conservation agriculture reduced some of the negative yield impacts of heat stress in cropping systems, providing crucial information for farmers amid the climate crisis. (Read Article)
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Room for Improvement: The coverage of health and nutrition interventions in India improved between 2006 and 2016, but there are still opportunity gaps and associated inequalities with maternal-child intervention delivery, explain Phuong Ngyuen, Rasmi Avula, and Purnima Menon in their new paper. For example, opportunity gaps were larger for women with higher education, higher socioeconomic status, and women living in urban areas, despite higher rates of coverage. (Read Article)
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Food Safety First: A study in Ghana by Vivian Hoffmann and colleagues showed that training groundnut farmers in preventing aflatoxin (a common food safety hazard) significantly improved post-harvest practices, while other elements of the intervention had more modest positive effects. This is good news for product quality, farmer income, and farm families’ health. (Read Article)
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The Importance of Prevention: Jessica Leight and Nicholas Wilson find that women in lower and middle income countries who have experienced physical intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime use maternal health services less often. They conclude that IPV prevention could be important to consider in maternal and neonatal health interventions going forward. (Read Article)
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Can Social Safety-Nets Carry the Weight of Crises?
A new IFPRI policy brief evaluates how a public food transfer program in Bangladesh (which gives rice to the poor) performed during COVID-19, finding substantial shortfalls in deliveries. Shyamal Chowdury, Nahian Bin Khaled, Kaylani Raghunathan, and Shahidur Rashid provide helpful recommendations for strengthening these types of social safety-nets to be more resilient in future crises. ( Read the Policy Brief)
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Glass Half Full: In a blog for World Water Day, Claudia Ringler and Ruth Meinzen-Dick unpack what we really mean when we talk about water’s “value” and explain why it is often a contested and poorly managed resource. They share key pointers for communities who want to manage freshwater more sustainably and fairly, in a way that reflects its myriad values. (Read Blog)
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Processed Food Revolution: Africa south of the Sahara, like many parts of the world, now faces a double burden of malnutrition, report Swati Malhotra and Rob Vos. The region’s economic growth, and thus increasing availability of processed foods and sugary drinks, is worsening the problem of overweight and obesity. Meanwhile, millions of food insecure people left behind by economic development still go to bed hungry. (Read Blog)
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The Heat Never Bothered Me Anyway: Agricultural labor responses to heat stress events in Tanzania are different for men and women, with women continuing work despite high temperatures.This could be because women need to make up for their lower access to agricultural assets and resources and limited labor options. Sex-specific differences in heat sensitivity could also play a role. Yeyoung Lee, Carlo Azzarri, and Claudia Ringler discuss their research. (Read Blog)
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Uncommon Knowledge: Policymakers in India tend to see the commons as “wastelands” because their economic value is unknown. Harpinder Sandhu, Wei Zhang, Hagar Eldidi, and Ruth Meinzen-dick explore the bioeconomics of these areas, emphasizing their value as vital sources of clean air and water, food and fuel, livelihoods, cultural inspiration, and more, from which 300-400 million rural people draw goods and services. (Read Blog)
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Measuring Women’s Empowerment: IFPRI’s pro-WEAI tool monitors how successful individual agricultural development projects are at empowering women, as well as other important factors like intimate partner violence. Now, there’s a free, online pro-WEAI Distance Learning Module designed to help a wide range of users put the tool in action on their own projects. Ara Go and Emily Myers report. (Read Blog)
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Happy Birthday CGIAR: 50 Innovations in 2021!
We continue to highlight CGIAR’s 50 years of innovations that changed the world. The current theme takes a deep dive into how CGIAR’s original mission – to solve hunger – has expanded over the past 50 years to address human well-being as part of a bigger picture encompassing human, animal, and ecosystem health under the pressure of a climate crisis.
The featured innovation this week is Crops Bred to Improve Nutrition. CGIAR biofortification technology development started in 2003 with an IFPRI-CIAT program, now called HarvestPlus. Since then, CGIAR work has sparked a global movement for breeding staple crops with enhanced vitamins and minerals for better human health. ( Learn About This Innovation)
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IFPRI at the Food Systems Summit: There is a new landing page to showcase IFPRI’s involvement in the upcoming United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021! It hosts all the latest information about IFPRI’s collaboration with the Summit’s Scientific Group, our cross-cutting Levers of Change leadership, our Summit-themed events, and much more. ( Visit Page)
A Round of Applause: Congratulations to Jemimah Njuki, IFPRI’s Director for Africa, on being included by Apolitical as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy 2021! Dr Njuki is recognized for her amazing efforts towards improving women’s economic justice and rights. ( See the List)
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 At IFPRI’s March 19th Policy Seminar, Christopher Barrett (Professor of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University) spoke to the importance of the private sector in agri-food research and food systems transformation. (Event)
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There are already a number of solutions [to reducing food waste and loss], the question becomes whether we can scale some of these solutions,” – Agnes Kalibata, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to the 2021 Food Systems Summit. (Event)
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In order to build back better, we need to focus on highlighting issues such as the invisibility of women in order to recognize female farmers as integral parts of a resilient food system,” – Patricia Van de Velde, Gender Focal Point for the Food and Agriculture Practice, The World Bank. (Event)
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COVID-19 and other food shocks facing PNG
Papua New Guinea National published an op-ed by IFPRI’s Emily Schmidt, Xinshen Diao, and Paul Dorosh on the ways that COVID-19 and other shocks impact households in Papua New Guinea. Based on results from simulations, the authors provide recommendations for improving safety net programs, market infrastructure investments, and data gaps.
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African industry is doing better than previously thought
In an article in The Economist on the current state of Africa’s manufacturing sector, IFPRI’s Margaret McMillan dismisses the notion that Africa is deindustrializing, and research by IFPRI’s Xinshen Diao and Mia Ellis highlights productivity and hiring trends at small versus large firms.
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How FPOs can help small and marginal farmers
An article in The Indian Express about farmer producer organizations (FPOs) cited IFPRI research which shows that FPOs helped to increase gross income and productivity for farmers in Maharashtra and Bihar.
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