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Spotlight on Nutrition: IFPRI researchers continue to draw attention to the need to improve diets and nutritional outcomes.
Recent events focused on this topic include:
In research news, one of the N4G Summit side events launched a new Lancet series on adolescent nutrition, featuring contributions from many of our researchers. We also just published an IFPRI Policy Brief about transforming the Nigerian agrifood system for healthier diets and higher farm incomes. Lastly, we are excited to share the new CGIAR “FRESH” initiative, which aims to use an end-to-end approach to increase fruit and vegetable intake and improve diet quality, nutrition, and health—while also improving livelihoods, empowering women and youth, and mitigating negative environmental impacts.
Though the Nutrition for Growth “Year of Action“ is coming to an end this December, the hard work is not. IFPRI looks forward to continuing our long-standing mission of providing research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. You can keep up with IFPRI’s nutrition related activities on our topic page.
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Reframing Gender in Agriculture: A new IFPRI and PIM CGIAR book marks a shift away from a typical, instrumentalist outlook focused on how gender analysis can contribute to research objectives. Instead, authors flip the question to ask: “How does agricultural and environmental research and development contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment?” By reframing the analysis, Rhiannon Pyburn, Anouka van Eerdewijk, and colleagues put gender equality and women’s empowerment at the center of agricultural development. (Read Book)
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Healthier and Wealthier: Transforming Nigerian food systems for healthier diets will require a paradigm shift that puts consumers and their diets at the center of policymaking, argue Olivier Ecker, Tracy Brown, and Kwaw S. Andam in the new IFPRI Policy Brief. They make policy recommendations for delivering more nutritious and affordable diets for all, as well as better and more secure rural livelihoods. (Read the Brief and Read the Blog)
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The Next Generation: As part of the new Lancet series, a paper by Purnima Menon, Harold Alderman, Phuong Hong Nguyen, and colleagues explores strategies and interventions for healthy adolescent growth, nutrition, and development—an area which is often overlooked. They highlight what works and offer recommendations on the essential next steps; approaches should be multifaceted and multisectoral, adapted to local context, and in partnership with young people. (Read Article)
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The Economics of Transformation: Shenggen Fan, Derek Headey, Christopher Rue, and Timothy Thomas noticed a lack of economic considerations in the overarching discourse on food systems transformation. In their new article, they analyze proposed pathways to transformation through an economic lens, presenting potential challenges and knowledge gaps that need to be addressed in order to achieve food systems transformation for human and planetary health. (Read Article)
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Impacts of TiSeed Aquaculture Training: Ghana is the top producer of tilapia in sub-Saharan Africa, but issues with seed, feed, and poor practices need to be solved. To improve access to quality fish seed and accelerate inclusive aquaculture development in Ghana, IFPRI and partners’ TiSeed Project has been providing training for fish farmers.
As part of the training provided, the TiSeed project made samples of different record sheets available to farmers to guide them in good recordkeeping and marketing practices. The graph above shows major recordkeeping improvements among the trained farmers since the baseline survey in 2019.
Our new interactive graphic, the second in a TiSeed Project series, explores other aspects of the training and spotlights impact stories from participants Joe, Gifty, and Nana. ( Explore the Interactive and Visit the Project Page)
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From Source to Sink: Agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) is currently the only major sector with serious potential to become a net emissions sink, making it pivotal to reaching net zero emissions. In light of recent COP26 negotiations, Channing Arndt explores possibilities for AFOLU transformation and realizing global climate goals. (Read Blog)
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The Realities of Rural Women: To recognize International Day of Rural Women 2021, Claudia Ringler and Elizabeth Bryan discussed the pandemic challenges that many rural women are currently facing: from worrying more about food security than men, to working less outside the house than men, to suffering more from lack of digital extension access than men. These IFPRI survey results shed light on the structural inequalities that need to be addressed for global pandemic recovery and building climate change resilience. (Read Blog)
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Domino Effect: New research demonstrates an empirical connection between heat shocks, lower maize yields, and reduced child growth in Tanzania. This is the first time such a link has been empirically established between climate shocks, agricultural productivity, and health! Researchers Steven Block, Beliyou Haile, Liangzhi You, and Derek Headey discuss their evidence and its implications in a blog post. (Read Blog)
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Road to Recovery: There are several promising ways to structure the new International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to help low-income countries overcome pandemic impacts. In an IFPRI blog post, Eugenio Díaz-Bonilla outlines some options and makes the case for using a percentage of the SDRs to create a guarantee fund for certain “pandemic recovery bonds.” (Read Blog)
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Zooming In: IFPRI recently conducted a large-scale randomized controlled trial analyzing the Supporting Family Farming to Launch Poultry Farming and Enhance the Rural Economy (SELEVER) program in rural Burkina Faso. Building on that trial, researchers set out to understand the impacts of specific SELEVER program elements on women’s poultry production. Jessica Leight, Jessica Heckert, and Aulo Gelli report on the findings in their blog post. (Read Blog)
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Innovations for Nutrition and Growth: We continue to highlight CGIAR’s 50 years of innovations in 2021! The current theme, “Innovations for nutrition and growth,” looks back on 50 years of research to support safe, sustainable and healthy food for people and the planet.
Our recently featured innovation, “Stories to end malnutrition,” explores how to successfully tackle malnutrition and proactively improve nutrition outcomes in populations by presenting real-life lessons from the successes of policymakers, nutrition leaders, program managers and other decision-makers. ( Learn More)
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One CGIAR Global Directors: CGIAR has announced a major milestone in the transition to One CGIAR with the appointment of a Senior Leadership Team. IFPRI’s Director General, Johan Swinnen, has been named the Global Director of Systems Transformation! ( Learn More)
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Call for Papers: Submissions are open for an upcoming special issue of the Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy (AEPP) journal, titled “COVID-19 in South Asia: Lessons from a time of upheaval.” The issue will be edited by IFPRI’s Sudha Narayanan, Kalyani Raghunathan, and Shahidur Rashid. ( Learn More)
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 We spend roughly $700bn/year around the world on agricultural subsidies and most go to support the production of staple commodities… clearly we can do much better at reorienting subsidies” – Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI. (Event)
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It’s going to take all of us, operating at different levels to address climate change…working very closely with local stakeholders and communities to ensure that what comes out of this process actually has utility for them and fits within their farming or food systems,” – Jemimah Njuki, Director for Africa, IFPRI. (Event)
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The prospects for multilateral outcomes on market access in the near future are uncertain, therefore engaging in bilateral trade agreements could remain an avenue for expanding trade,” – Maximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). (Event)
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For me as a young farmer, climate change is not something I hear about on the radio, or see on the TV, or read in the papers, it’s something I experience every season…It is children, young people, and women who are disproportionately affected and are most vulnerable,” – Victor Mugo, Co-Chair Youth Liaison Group, UN Food Systems Summit. (Event)
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The soft spots of China’s common prosperity lie in the rural. Economic development should emphasize social equality while prioritizing efficiency,” – Zuhui Huang, Chief Expert, China Academy for Rural Development. (Event)
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Myanmar’s hidden hunger: A New Humanitarian article about rising poverty and food insecurity in Myanmar cites IFPRI research and quotes Senior Research Fellow Derek Headey: “Aid agencies are still mostly working in more remote conflict-affected areas, albeit with some shift to urban populations obviously made poorer by COVID and the political situation. But there is a lot of new poverty in the Delta and Dry Zone too, and these are major agricultural production centres and large population areas. So we’re very concerned there’s an emerging crisis in these zones that’s going under the radar.”
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Could Elon Musk really solve world hunger?: IFPRI’s Rob Vos was interviewed on NPR about what it would really take to solve world hunger—$33 billion per year until 2030, as shown by Ceres2030 research. Vos also explained that it’s about more than just the price: “There is a balancing act of government, regulatory frameworks, and social protections…We have to change behavior–what we eat, what we consume; producers–what we invest in; governments–where we put our money.”
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