Empowering local communities as stewards of Earth’s freshwater resources

Freshwater resources such as rivers, lakes, and wetlands are central to ecosystems, sustain the lives and livelihoods of human beings everywhere, and are an integral part of the culture, spirituality, and way of life of local communities. Yet around the world, they face a multitude of stresses—from climate change, environmental degradation, population growth, to infrastructure development.

In observance of Earth Day 2023, IFPRI’s Wei Zhang and Ruth Meinzen-Dick discuss ways to empower local communities to be stewards of Earth’s freshwater resources through community-based conservation—with recommendations from a recent study by IFPRI and The Nature Conservancy.

(Read B log | Read A rticle)

Training Workshop: Food Policy Analysis Using Multi-Market Partial Equilibrium Modeling
Tuesday May 2nd to Thursday May 4, 2023
9:00 AM to 5:30 PM EDT
Khartoum, Sudan

IFPRI @ AIM for Climate Summit
Monday May 8th to Wednesday May 10th, 2023
9:00 AM to 7:00 PM EDT

SPIR II Learning Event
Tuesday May 16th to Wednesday May 17th, 2023
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM EAT
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Gendered Differences: Elizabeth Bryan, Claudia Ringler, and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, in their chapter “Gender, Resilience, and Food Systems” in a new book on “Resilience and Food Security in a Food Systems Context,” apply a food systems lens to identify key entry points to strengthen women’s and men’s food security and nutrition in the face of multiple, reoccurring shocks and stressors. (Read C hapter)

Reading the Fine Print: In 2016, the Chilean government implemented a set of obesity prevention policies aimed at improving the food environment for children, including front-of-package warning labels on key nutrients of concern and bans on child-directed food advertisements. A longitudinal study by Gabriela Fretes et al. assesses the impact of these laws on children’s and adolescents’ dietary intake. (Read Article)

School Your Nerves: COVID-19 triggered widespread school closures and substantial hardships for families. Naureen Karachiwalla, Jessica Leight, and colleagues present novel evidence about the prevalence of mental health challenges among adolescent students in rural Mozambique immediately following the post-pandemic school reopening, finding that distance learning and social support had a positive effect on mental health among students. (Read Article)

Buzz Off: Despite efforts to control malaria in Kenya, it remains a public health challenge with economic costs that threaten achievement of sustainable development goals. Khalid Siddig et al. evaluate the Kenya Malaria Strategy (2019-2023) aimed at reducing malaria incidence and deaths by 75% of 2016 levels, providing insights for developing policies that mitigate the disease’s negative short-term effects on the Kenyan economy. (Read Article)

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Although data on women’s empowerment in agrifood systems have shown positive associations with agricultural production, food security, diets, and nutrition, determining the relationship between women’s empowerment and environmental outcomes and resilience,will require further data collection for the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI).

Agnes Quisumbing, who was invited to speak at the global launch of the FAO ‘s new report, The Status of Women in Agrifood Systems, on April 13 in Rome, reflects on a decade of measuring progress in women’s empowerment and discusses the report’s conceptual and analytical innovations.

(Read Blog | Read Report)

History lesson: The Black Sea region has historically been a major grain producer; its emergence as a major world exporting region is a relatively recent phenomenon. Joseph Glauber, David Laborde, and Johan Swinnen examine how and why Russia and Ukraine have become so important in 21st century global food markets. (Read Blog)

Food vs. fuel: The ”food vs. fuel” debate faded as global food supplies recovered after 2012 and agricultural commodity prices fell. Now, the Russia-Ukraine war has resurrected this debate. Joseph Glauber and Charlotte Hebebrand explore recent developments in biofuel production, discuss arguments for and against biofuel policies, and consider alternative mechanisms that could mitigate impacts of these policies on food prices. (Read Blog)

Regional war, global consequences: Russia’s war on Ukraine has inflicted devastating and persisting impacts that continue to mount more than a year after the invasion. In this guest post in our special series on the topic, Pavlo Martyshev, Oleg Nivievskyi, and Mariia Bogonos examine the global effects of the war’s impact on Ukraine’s agriculture sector, agricultural markets, and food security. (Read Blog)

It’s a man’s world: Changing customs, norms, and stereotypes about women is a long and slow process, but more gender equitable societies have far-reaching benefits beyond just the household. Anusha De, Caroline Miehe, and Bjorn van Campenhout examine attitudes about agro-input shops managed by women in Uganda and the impacts of men’s perceptions about women along agricultural value chains. (Read Blog)

What’s it going to take?: Danielle Resnick, Rob Vos, and Will Martin examine political economy challenges of repurposing agricultural support, highlight the role of these challenges in reform processes, and offer general guidelines for governments and development actors when pursuing reform agendas. (Read Blog)

Accelerating change: “The application of the Nexus Guidance will increase the efficiency of the use of natural resources and support the implementation and monitoring of (multipurpose) investments,” write Niandou Mounkaila, Ousmane Seidou, Claudia Ringler, and Robert Krefeld, who highlight efforts by the Niger Basin Authority to secure sustainable water, food, and energy security for generations to come. (Read Blog)

Money moves: Mobile money accounts allow people previously excluded from the formal financial sector to access savings accounts, make payments to merchants, and make person-to-person transfers, among other services. Alan de Brauw outlines mixed results from an impact evaluation that tested ways to increase enrollment and use of mobile money services in Ethiopia. (Read Blog)

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In the run up to World Water Day 2023, our colleague Ruth Meinzen-Dick shared an engaging photo essay about how farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal have changed over the past 40 years.

“As a graduate student at the time, I was inspired to study how farmers were managing irrigation tanks and other irrigation in India, even in systems that were officially run by the government. This work began my decades-long fascination with how communities manage their water and other resources. More recently, I had the great opportunity to work with Prachanda Pradhan on a study of how these systems have changed with male migration and shifting gender roles”. (Read Story)

Crisis resilience ‘critical’ to stem rising hunger: “A shift towards permanent ‘crisis resilience’ from short-term aid is crucial to mitigate increasingly frequent shocks to the global food system and tackle rising global hunger, say food policy researchers,” writes SciDev.Net in a piece featuring IFPRI’s 2023 Global Food Policy Report. (The article quotes IFPRI’s Johan Swinnen, Rob Vos, Anjani Kumar, and Hazel Malapit.)

Investing in early warning, agrifood chains needed for resilient food systems: Report: DownToEarth (India) features the 2023 Global Food Policy Report released on April 13, 2023, quoting: “There is a need to invest beyond short-term fixes to build food systems that are more resilient and equitable.”

Russia wants you to think the Black Sea grain deal is dead in the water: Politico interviewed Joseph Glauber for an article about the developments around the Black Sea grain initiative as Russia threatens to walk away from the pact brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye (Turkey). According to Glauber, “the markets are not taking Moscow’s threats seriously—yet.”

Ethiopia signs MoU with IFPRI: Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) reported that the Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands has signed a memorandum of understanding with IFPRI to jointly carry out research on irrigation development. The MoU was signed by Ethiopia’s Ambassador to the USA Seleshi Bekele and IFPRI Director General Johan Swinnen.

How relative poverty influences responses to social protection programmes: Evidence from Pakistan: Trust in government is essential for a functioning democracy, but it is also critical for the economy. VoxDev features an in-depth analysis by Katrina Kosec and Cecilia Hyunjung Mo examining how Pakistan’s national unconditional cash transfer program affected political attitudes and whether these cash transfers had different effects on recipients depending on how economically well off they felt relative to others. (Read o n IFPRI Blog)

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To see food systems beginning to move towards what people are looking at in regards to negotiations, to see that people are recognizing the role of food systems and how they impact the whole idea of climate change is extremely important. ” – Agnes Kalibata, President, AGRA. (Science and innovation for food systems transformation: Follow-up to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit – policy seminar, April 11, 2023)