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International Day of Rural Women and World Food Day 2024
In October, we celebrated two important United Nations Days that highlight topics central to IFPRI’s work and mission: the International Day of Rural Women (October 15) and World Food Day (October 16).
These two UN Days are deeply interconnected. Rural women play a crucial role in food systems around the world, and research has shown that women’s empowerment is linked to improved food security and nutrition.
To mark the International Day of Rural Women, Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Anne M. Larson discuss the Reach, Benefit, Empower, Transform (RBET) framework which, the authors believe, can be a powerful tool for advancing equity and empowerment for women. Read Reach, Benefit, Empower, Transform: Approaches to helping rural women secure their resource rights. Also read Achieving women’s empowerment beyond income and asset increases: What do we still need to know? by Deborah Rubin.
In the blog post published on the World Food Day, Marie Ruel and Inge Brouwer remind us that the 2024 theme, “Right to Food for a Better Life and a Better Future,” stresses the critical role of sustainable food systems in ensuring everyone’s fundamental right to nutritious food and healthy diets. Read World Food Day 2024: The critical role of healthy diets for realizing the right to food. But, as Danielle Resnick and Aditi Chugh point out in our other WFD-related story, expanding access to nutritious foods is impossible to achieve without at the same time strengthening institutions and relationships across public, private, and civil society partners. We need to improve governance to create supportive environments for diet and nutrition policies.
Visit our topic pages to learn more about IFPRI’s work on Gender and Nutrition.
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Supporting and shaping the global nutrition agenda with evidence: A three-decade journey of research and partnerships for impact
October 30, 2024
The 34th Annual Forman Lecture was delivered by Dr. Marie Ruel, Senior Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit at IFPRI. She served as the Director of IFPRI’s Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division from 2004 to 2023, after serving as Senior Research Fellow and Research Fellow in that division beginning in 1996. Dr. Ruel reflected on the role of research in supporting and shaping the evolution of the global nutrition agenda over the past three decades.
(Watch Recording)
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 November 5, 2024, 9:00–10:30 am (US/Eastern)
Learning Support for a Multi-Country Climate Resilience Programme for Food Security
IFPRI Policy Seminar organized by CGIAR with support from World Food Programme (WFP) and The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).
November 6, 2024, 1:00–5:00 pm (Europe/Amsterdam), 7:00–11:00 am (US/Eastern)
Improving Diets and Nutrition through Food Systems: What Will It Take? A Dialogue on IFPRI’s 2024 Global Food Policy Report
Special event co-organized by IFPRI, the Netherlands Food Partnership, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security, and Nature.
Please check our Events page for most recent updates.
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Rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase gaps of rice yields between low- and middle-to-high-income countries: Rising carbon dioxide levels are expected to boost future rice yields, yet variations in CO2 fertilization effect (CFE) across rice subspecies and the impact of global warming introduce uncertainty in global rice production projections. A meta-analysis, co-authored by Liangzhi You, of CO2 field experiments and crop modeling for the top 14 rice-producing countries revealed a parabolic relationship between rice CFE and temperature, with notable subspecies differences. By the 2050s, global rice production may rise by 50.32 million tons (7.6%) due to CFE, but yield disparities between income groups are expected to grow. (Read the article in Nature Food)
Men can cook: Graduation model interventions aim to help households escape poverty, yet few focus on restrictive gender norms. Harold Alderman, Daniel Gilligan, Melissa Hidrobo, Jessica Leight, Michael Mulford, and Heleene Tambet assessed the impact of such a program on gender-equitable attitudes and behaviors in Ethiopia. At a 1-year follow-up, all treatment groups showed improved attitudes and men’s domestic engagement, but by the 3-year mark, impacts were only sustained in the treatment arms that introduced men’s engagement groups to further promote improvements in equitable gender norms. (Read the article in World Development)
Effects of prenatal small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements on pregnancy, birth, and infant outcomes: This study co-authored by Lieven Huybregts and Jef Leroy assessed the impact of small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements (SQ-LNSs) on birth outcomes compared to iron and folic acid or standard care (IFA/SOC) and to multiple micronutrient supplements (MMSs) during pregnancy. A meta-analysis of four trials found that SQ-LNSs increased birth weight, improved newborn anthropometric scores, and reduced risks of low birth weight, stunting, and wasting. The effects were stronger among infants of mothers with low BMI, food insecurity, malaria, or inflammation. While SQ-LNSs showed notable benefits over IFA/SOC, results comparing SQ-LNSs with MMSs were mixed. (Read the article in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)
Disclosure of violence against women and girls in Senegal: Measures of violence against women and girls (VAWG) are widely collected in surveys, yet estimates are acknowledged to be lower bounds of the true prevalence. This study by Amber Peterman, Malick Dione, Melissa Hidrobo et al. reports on a survey experiment randomly assigning 3,400 women and girls to either face-to-face interviews or audio computer-assisted self-interviews (ACASI), with ACASI showing 4–7 percentage points higher disclosure of intimate partner violence and 6–12 percentage points higher for non-partner VAWG. (Read the article in The World Bank Economic Review)
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One year of war in Gaza: Food emergency continues with no end in sight
The conflict has left the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents severely food insecure, as agriculture and essential food distribution infrastructure have been devastated. With more than two-thirds of Gaza’s agricultural land and farming infrastructure destroyed and food prices up 150% since the beginning of the war, families struggle to access daily food needs.
Increases in commercial food supplies since June have helped attenuate food price inflation and food insecurity somewhat. Yet, with 80% unemployment and irregular and declining amounts of humanitarian food assistance crossing the border, the risk of widespread famine remains high.
In this IFPRI Issue Post, Rob Vos outlines the ongoing food emergency in Gaza, a year into the conflict.
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Does conflict-driven internal displacement influence demand for agricultural inputs? Evidence from Nigeria
By Mulubrhan Amare, Kate Ambler, Temilolu Bamiwuye, Jeffrey Bloem, Rewa Misra, and Julia Wagner
Examining the effectiveness of vouchers and marketing information.
Mercosur Outlook launch: Charting a course for sustainable agricultural growth amid uncertainty
By Juan Pablo Gianatiempo and Brian McNamara
Meeting challenges of the coming growing season and beyond in South America.
Survey: Rural Papua New Guinea faces an array of food security challenges
By Emily Schmidt and Rishabh Mukerjee
Starch-heavy diets, the reach of extension instruction, and other issues.
Comprehensive sanitation in India: Despite progress, an unfinished agenda
By Suman Chakrabarti, Soyra Gune, Tim A. Bruckner, Julie Strominger, and Parvati Singh
Building on improvements in infant mortality.
Unleashing the potential of Generation Z for food system transformation in Africa
By Kibrom Abay, Clemens Breisinger, Harriet Mawia, Joyce Maru, Dorah Momanyi, and Boniface Munene
A new research agenda.
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New pro-WEAI distance learning course modules
In response to the growing demand for WEAI surveys, IFPRI developed distance learning courses on the project-level WEAI, or pro-WEAI. These online courses teach specific skills related to using pro-WEAI to meet the needs of various users: quantitative and qualitative analysts, monitoring and evaluation specialists, donors, and field supervisors.
Access the courses here.
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TV Interview | Purnima Menon at the UN General Assembly In this interview with RFD-TV, Purnima Menon discusses what UNGA and Climate Week meetings mean for agriculture, and why it’s important for global leaders to prioritize agricultural innovation as they make decisions about how to address climate change and other global issues.
At high-level dialogue, Stakeholders Rally Support for Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture National Update (Nigeria) wrote about a recent high-level dialogue on the CGIAR HER+ initiative in Abuja that discussed the WEAGov framework. The article quoted Jordan Kyle, who said, “Women are differently affected by climate shocks. Solutions designed without women’s voices are unlikely to work effectively for them.” (Punch also reported on this event)
IFPRI and BIMSTEC Host Dissemination Event on Regional Trade and Agricultural Transformation in BIMSTEC Countries Ground reports that IFPRI’s project on regional trade and agricultural transformation in BIMSTEC has concluded. It aimed to enhance trade linkages and foster sustainable agricultural transformation across BIMSTEC’s seven member states.
La nueva realidad del agro (The new reality of agriculture) Agroempresario quoted Valeria Piñeiro in this article on the increasing global demand for food and trade challenges that require the agriculture sector to rethink its strategies to stay competitive in an uncertain global environment. Piñeiro discussed how trade has returned to an “old new normal”, where growth is limited. “We are returning to a relatively challenging commercial environment,” Piñeiro said.
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IFPRI’s RISE 2024
IFPRI’s annual staff retreat and research conference (RISE) took place at IFPRI HQ in Washington, DC, from October 15-17, 2024. As usual, RISE 2024 brought together colleagues from all IFPRI offices around the world, with more than 250 attending in person and more than 330 virtually.
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