IFPRI CGIAR
Subscribe

Back

What we do

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.

benin_samuel_0

researcher spotlight

Samuel Benin

Samuel Benin is the Acting Director for Africa in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. He conducts research on national strategies and public investment for accelerating food systems transformation in Africa and provides analytical support to the African Union’s CAADP Biennial Review.

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

partnerships

Inter-American Development Bank works to help improve the lives of those living in Latin
America and the Caribbean. The Inter-American Development Bank provides support through finance and technology to help reduce poverty, inequality, improve health and education, and advance infrastructure. The Inter-American Development Bank seeks to promote development in a sustainable and environmentally-conscious approach.

Homepage Link
donor-iadb

Projects

Agricultural adaptation to climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean

Agricultural adaptation to climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean

…

View all Projects

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Report

Unlocking innovation: Assessing the role of Agricultural R&D in Latin America and the Caribbean

2023Nin-Pratt, Alejandro; Stads, Gert-Jan; de los Santos, Luis; Muñoz, Gonzalo
Details

Unlocking innovation: Assessing the role of Agricultural R&D in Latin America and the Caribbean

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of public agricultural research and development (R&D) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the contextual factors influencing agricultural R&D investment and their implications for agricultural productivity growth. The analysis combines new data for ten LAC countries collected by the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI’s) Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) program with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with existing ASTI and other datasets. By integrating these various datasets, the report provides an in-depth examination of recent trends in public agricultural research spending, capacity, and outputs across the LAC region. Despite the demonstrated high returns on agricultural R&D investments, LAC countries continue to lag in allocating sufficient resources to this critical area. The traditional agricultural research model faces major challenges in keeping pace with the evolving agricultural landscape and food system more broadly.

Year published

2023

Authors

Nin-Pratt, Alejandro; Stads, Gert-Jan; de los Santos, Luis; Muñoz, Gonzalo

Citation

Nin-Pratt, Alejandro; Stads, Gert-Jan; de Los Santos, Luís; and Muñoz, Gonzalo. 2023. Unlocking innovation: Assessing the role of Agricultural R&D in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0005006

Keywords

Latin America; Caribbean; Data Analysis; Data; Policy Innovation; Research; Agriculture; Agricultural Productivity

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-3.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.18235/0005006 Source record

Record type

Report

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Nicaragua: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

2023Stads, Gert-Jan; de los Santos, Luis
Details

Nicaragua: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

The IDB-funded PFPAS program has provided an important financial injection into Nicaragua’s agricultural research system during 2013–2018. The program has made important strides in rehabilitating some of INTA’s run-down research infrastructure, in offering degree and short-term training to research staff, and in strengthening linkages between agricultural research and producers. Notwithstanding the important achievements of PFPAS, Nicaragua’s agricultural R&D investment levels remain too low to provide the necessary technological solutions to enhance agricultural productivity and reduce rural poverty. As of 2020, the country invested just 0.22 percent of its agricultural GDP in agricultural research, which is insufficient to effectively address the many challenges the agricultural sector is facing. Nicaragua lacks a critical mass of highly qualified agricultural researchers. Building on the achievements of PFPAS, continued and accelerated training of young researchers to the MSc and PhD level remains critical. In addition, local university programs in agricultural sciences need to be strengthened so that more scientists have the opportunity to pursue higher level degrees in-country.

Year published

2023

Authors

Stads, Gert-Jan; de los Santos, Luis

Citation

Stads, Gert-Jan; and de los Santos, Luis. 2023. Nicaragua. Agricultural R&D Indicators Factsheet. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Country/Region

Nicaragua

Keywords

Central America; Latin America; Americas; Funding; Poverty Alleviation; Agriculture; Agricultural Research for Development; Financing

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Public investment in agri-food system innovation for sustainable development

2023Stads, Gert-Jan; Nin-Pratt, Alejandro; Wiebe, Keith D.; Sulser, Timothy B.; Benfica, Rui
Details

Public investment in agri-food system innovation for sustainable development

Research is essential for improvement of agricultural productivity, resource use and resilience, and for food systems transformation more broadly. This article analyzes the drivers of past agricultural productivity growth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and argues that productivity is not growing fast enough to meet the needs of a global population of 10 billion by 2050. A sustainable transformation of agri-food systems in LMICs will need greater and faster technical change. Higher investment in agri-food R&D is therefore needed to accelerate productivity growth and address the social, economic, nutritional and environmental challenges facing LMICs. Greater and better-targeted investment in sustainable technologies and climate change mitigation and adaptation will be particularly important to reducing the climate change impacts on agriculture and food security in the coming decades. However, LMICs with small research systems and limited innovation capacity lack the scale and resources to effectively tackle the challenges ahead. Better coordination and a clear articulation of roles and responsibilities among national, subregional, regional and global R&D actors (both from the public and private sectors) are essential to ensuring that scarce financial, human, and infrastructure resources are optimized, duplications minimized, and synergies and complementarities enhanced.

Year published

2023

Authors

Stads, Gert-Jan; Nin-Pratt, Alejandro; Wiebe, Keith D.; Sulser, Timothy B.; Benfica, Rui

Citation

Stads, Gert-Jan; Nin-Pratt, Alejandro; Wiebe, Keith D.; Sulser, Timothy B.; and Benfica, Rui. 2023. Public investment in agri-food system innovation for sustainable development. Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering 10(1): 123-134 https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2023484

Keywords

Agriculture; Agricultural Productivity; Agrifood Sector; Climate Change Mitigation; Food Security; Infrastructure; Nutrition; Productivity; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.15302/j-fase-2023484 Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Journal Article

Events

Pro-WEAI: A New Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

October 25, 2018, 9:00 – 12:00 pm

Pro-WEAI: A New Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects

The pro-WEAI is a new survey-based index that builds on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and is adapted for project use with a closer focus on aspects of empowerment related to health and nutrition. The index is being developed by IFPRI’s Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project, Phase 2 (GAAP2), a learning and capacity-building initiative […]

Blogs

How climate change will impact agricultural productivity in Central America and the Andean Region
IFPRI Blog
 | 
August 19, 2019

How climate change will impact agricultural productivity in Central America and the Andean Region

By Timothy S. Thomas, Ana María Loboguerrero RodrÍguez, Ana R. Rios, Deissy Martínez Barón, Graciela Magrin, and Vicente Barros

Central America will be particularly hard-hit by declining yields of rainfed maize, modeling shows.

How two agricultural development projects boosted women’s empowerment
IFPRI Blog
 | 
November 07, 2018

How two agricultural development projects boosted women’s empowerment

By Lina Salazar and Jossie Fahsbender

IFPRI's Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) sheds light on how programs impact household gender dynamics.

Innovative scorecard system helps to better allocate poverty program investments
IFPRI Blog
 | 
October 04, 2018

Innovative scorecard system helps to better allocate poverty program investments

By Manuel A. Hernandez and Sara Gustafson

A new approach helps potential funders weigh the financial risks and on-the-ground benefits of anti-poverty programs.