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Who we are

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.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Development Strategies and Governance

Fatma Abdelaziz

Senior Research Associate

Bio

Fatma M. Abdelaziz is a Senior Research Associate in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. She currently leads a USAID–funded research project on cluster-based development in Egypt. She also manages the IFPRI Egypt Seminar Series which features research-based policy dialogues that aim to identify and provide evidence-based policy solutions in Egypt. Prior to her work at IFPRI, she worked as consultant with the UNDP and PwC. Fatma’s research interests include public policy and development economics, with a special focus on cluster-based development. Fatma holds an MSc in Public Policy and Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo.

Publications

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Brief

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers

2024Abdelaziz, Fatma; Abay, Kibrom A.
Details

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers

Digital innovations hold significant potential to address multiple forms of market failures. However, their adoption remains low and heterogenous across Africa. Smallholder farmers face significant barriers in accessing essential information, limiting their ability to seize market opportunities and enhance profitability. While numerous digital tools have been developed for farmers in the region, most are still in pilot phases. The landscape of digital agricultural innovations in Egypt, the focus of this study, presents a similar outlook, whereby the Egyptian market has an array of innovative digital study, presents a similar outlook, whereby the Egyptian market has an array of innovative digital agricultural tools that offer different services to farmers (including digital advisory agricultural and market services). Several demand and supply-side factors contribute to the low adoption of these digital innovations and their disparities among smallholder farmers in Africa and Egypt. On the supply side, the most important challenges include inadequate public and private investment in complementary infra-structure, unsustainable business models, and a misalignment in the pace of innovation. The most important demand-side challenges include lack of digital literacy, insufficient context-specific needs assessments, digital divide, and accessibility, usability, and user trust. User confidence and trust in digital tools is another important but understudied topic.. However, we lack empirically grounded evidence on alternative supply and demand-side interventions to enhance the adoption and scaling of digital innovations in various contexts, including Egypt.

Year published

2024

Authors

Abdelaziz, Fatma; Abay, Kibrom A.

Citation

Abdelaziz, Fatma; and Abay, Kibrom A. 2024. Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers. Project Note September 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152495

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Northern Africa; Agricultural Technology; Digital Agriculture; Digital Innovation; Smallholders

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility to Resilience in Central and West Asia and North Africa

Record type

Brief

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Working Paper

Digital tools for smallholders in Egypt: The launch of a new price monitoring tool – Mahsoly

2024Abdelaziz, Fatma; Tarek, Abdallah
Details

Digital tools for smallholders in Egypt: The launch of a new price monitoring tool – Mahsoly

The rapid adoption of mobile phones in agricultural and production systems provides an avenue to unlock the potential of digital innovations to transform smallholder agriculture in low- and middle-income countries. Previous research highlights how the adoption of digital tools can enhance farmers’ profits and marketing outcomes by improving market efficiency through better supply and demand matching. Other research similarly emphasizes how digital innovations can facilitate agricultural transformation and transform the functioning of markets by addressing multiple forms of institutional and market failures. However, despite these advantages and the availability of numerous digital tools for agriculture, their adoption remains low and uneven across Africa, where agricultural markets are still underdeveloped. Smallholder farmers in developing countries, including Egypt, face challenges in accessing essential information, which limits their ability to leverage market opportunities and maximize profitability. Given the limited understanding of the primary challenges hindering Egyptian farmers’ adoption of digital technologies and the strategies needed to enhance their access to these innovations, this paper aims to utilize an extensive survey of smallholder farmers in Egypt to: (i) examine the constraints to adoption of digital agricultural tools in Egypt; and (ii) assess the impact of farmer training programs on the awareness and adoption of digital tools, using the Mahsoly mobile application and its new price monitoring tool as a case study.

Year published

2024

Authors

Abdelaziz, Fatma; Tarek, Abdallah

Citation

Abdelaziz, Fatma; and Tarek, Abdallah. 2024. Digital tools for smallholders in Egypt: The launch of a new price monitoring tool – Mahsoly. MENA Working Paper 43. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152510

Country/Region

Egypt

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Northern Africa; Digital Innovation; Farming Systems; Mobile Phones; Smallholders

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Harnessing digital innovations for climate action and market access: Opportunities and constraints in the CWANA region

2024Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul; Salama, Yousra; Abay, Kibrom A.; Abdelaziz, Fatma; Zaccari, Claudia; Akramkhanov, Akmal; Menza, Gianpiero; Anarbekov, Oyture
Details

Harnessing digital innovations for climate action and market access: Opportunities and constraints in the CWANA region

There is growing optimism about the potential of digital innovations to support climate action and transform agricultural markets. We review and characterize the landscape of digital innovations in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region. We highlight major success stories associated with the potential of digital innovations to facilitate rural market transformation and support climate action, including adaptation and mitigation. Our desk and landscape review identifies various digital innovations used in Egypt, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. We then create a typology of digital innovations based on seven broad service categorizations: weather and climate; agricultural finance; energy and early warning systems; data and crowdsourcing; market information and market place; extension and advisory information; and supply chain coordination. Three technical and validation workshops supplement this review. Our review shows that digital innovations have the potential to build resilience to climate change and increase market access, but their adoption remains low and varying across contexts. Significant heterogeneity and differences exist across these countries, possibly due to different institutional and regulatory frameworks that guide demand and capacity. We identify several supply and demand-side constraints facing the digital ecosystem in the region. There is the existence of a significant digital divide fueled by gender, literacy gaps, and related socioeconomic and psychosocial constraints. A seeming disconnect also exists between pilots and scale-ups, as most existing digital applications are unsuccessful in expanding beyond the pilot phase.

Year published

2024

Authors

Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul; Salama, Yousra; Abay, Kibrom A.; Abdelaziz, Fatma; Zaccari, Claudia; Akramkhanov, Akmal; Menza, Gianpiero; Anarbekov, Oyture

Citation

Tabe-Ojong, Martin Paul Jr.; Salama, Yousra; Abay, Kibrom A.; Abdelaziz, Fatma; Zaccari, Claudia; et al. 2024. Harnessing digital innovations for climate action and market access: Opportunities and constraints in the CWANA region. Global Food Security 41(June 2024): 100763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100763

Country/Region

Egypt; Morocco; Uzbekistan

Keywords

Africa; Asia; Northern Africa; Central Asia; Innovation; Market Access; Climate Change; Climate-smart Agriculture; Digital Technology

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-3.0-IGO

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100763 Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Egypt conference: Opportunities and challenges of cluster-based development
IFPRI Blog
 | 
February 28, 2019

Egypt conference: Opportunities and challenges of cluster-based development

By Hoda El Enbaby and Fatma Abdelaziz

IFPRI researchers on what the evidence shows about sparking local economic development in China and Egypt.

Egypt and other Arab countries need sound policies to jump-start development efforts
IFPRI Blog
 | 
June 24, 2016

Egypt and other Arab countries need sound policies to jump-start development efforts

By Katarlah Taylor, Fatma Abdelaziz, and Jose Luis Figueroa

Participants at a recent Cairo seminar held to mark the Egypt launch of IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) grappled with the Arab region’s profound development problems. The upheavals of the Arab Spring halted progress in meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said Clemens Breisinger, director of IFPRI’s Egypt Strategy Support Program. “It […]

Events

The potential of digital tools to support farmers in Egypt: Lessons learned and way forward
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

November 9, 2021, 8:00 – 10:30 am

The potential of digital tools to support farmers in Egypt: Lessons learned and way forward

Virtual Event: NOV 9, 2021 – 08:00 AM to 10:30 AM EST. This technical workshop aims to mobilize various actors' efforts as well support the MALR consolidate and mainstream existing digital services in Egypt. 

COVID-19 lessons for rebuilding resilient value chains and agri-food system
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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March 2, 2021, 9:00 – 10:30 am

COVID-19 lessons for rebuilding resilient value chains and agri-food system

The COVID-19 pandemic is an important reminder and rationale for investing in resilient value chains and agri-food systems. The pandemic revealed important vulnerabilities in national and global food systems. Although the pandemic continues to ravish national economies, these impacts vary across sectors and value chains. Most sectors and value chains are being (negatively) affected by […]

Launch of IFPRI’s 2019 Global Food Policy Report: Revitalizing Rural Areas in Lebanon & Soft Launch of WBG’s DigitalAG4MENA
Series/Special Event

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June 18, 2019, 11:00 – 2:00 pm

Launch of IFPRI’s 2019 Global Food Policy Report: Revitalizing Rural Areas in Lebanon & Soft Launch of WBG’s DigitalAG4MENA

The Launch of IFPRI’s 2019 Global Food Policy Report Welcoming Remarks Keynote Presentations Global Food Policy – Key Findings of the GFPR 2019 Regional Chapter – Cluster-Based Industrialization to Revitalize MENA Rural Areas Panel Discussion and Q&A Session Rural Revitalization: The Last Rabbit out of the Development Hat Can we Leap-Frog into Digitization? Promoting Agricultural […]

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News

February 24, 2016 | Press Release

IFPRI, a Global Leader in Food and Agriculture Research, Opens Program Office in Cairo

IFPRI, a Global Leader in Food and Agriculture Research, Opens Program Office in Cairo The Cairo hub will produce scientific evidence and build national capacity to raise incomes of the rural poor and improve food and nutrition security in Egypt Office to serve as a resource for journalists February 24, 2016, Cairo, Egypt—The International Food […]

Research

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