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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

Kalyani Raghunathan

Kalyani Raghunathan is Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit, based in New Delhi, India. Her research lies at the intersection of agriculture, gender, social protection, and public health and nutrition, with a specific focus on South Asia and Africa. 

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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

Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Jordan Kyle

Research Fellow

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Bio

Jordan Kyle is a Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit at IFPRI. Her research focuses on how to strengthen delivery of aid programs and public services, as well as on governance, voice, and democratization more broadly. She has a special interest in understanding how implementation shapes trust in institutions and affects long-term success and sustainability of policies and programs, as well as in how to empower women and local communities within local and national decision-making processes.

Prior to joining IFPRI, Jordan worked at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where she advised and engaged senior policy officials on social safety nets, food and nutrition policy, and labor market policies. At OMB, she won several awards for public service, including for contributions to school meals programs during the COVID-19 pandemic and to efforts to reduce burdens on individuals when applying for social safety net programs. Previously, she worked as a Senior Fellow and Chief of Data and Analytics at the Tony Blair Institute and as an Associate Research Fellow at IFPRI. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.

Publications

Personal Website

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Publications

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Working Paper

Unlocking locally-led resilience amid conflict and climate stress: Views from community leaders in Mali on development priorities, aid distribution, and anticipatory action

2024Bleck, Jaimie; Carrillo, Lucia; Gottlieb, Jessica; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Soumano, Moumouni
Details

Unlocking locally-led resilience amid conflict and climate stress: Views from community leaders in Mali on development priorities, aid distribution, and anticipatory action

We surveyed 2,919 community leaders across seven regions of Mali to provide insights on the prevalence and severity of shocks and crises across localities; which types of shocks and crises are most difficult from which to recover; the formal and informal ways in which local actors are involved in aid distribution systems; and the types of programming local actors view as most beneficial for promoting resilience. Despite increasing prevalence of conflict across localities, leaders predominately cited climate-related shocks as the most difficult from which to recover— especially droughts. We find that localities vary in the inclusiveness of local governance around aid distribution: while elected mayors are almost always involved, traditional leaders, women’s group and youth leaders in villages, civil servants, and civil society leaders are each involved in 40–60% of localities. We used both a budget allocation exercise and an experimental game in which we introduced the concept of anticipatory action (AA) programming—aid that is “triggered” by an early warning signal to arrive before a shock and mitigate its worst effects—to probe preferences over aid modality. We found that leaders see value in balancing investment across resilience programming (including AA) and humanitarian response, especially food aid. However, there is some important variation between village- and commune-level officials: village-level leaders are more likely to prioritize aid modalities that target households directly, like food aid and cash transfers, while commune-level leaders are more likely to prioritize risk prevention trainings. Our findings have important policy implications for promoting local resilience in Mali, including the importance of investing more in drought resilience, engaging actors at different levels of local governance who have different information and perspectives, and simultaneously investing in capacity-building around early warning system accuracy and dissemination.

Year published

2024

Authors

Bleck, Jaimie; Carrillo, Lucia; Gottlieb, Jessica; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Soumano, Moumouni

Citation

Bleck, Jaimie; Carrillo, Lucia; Gottlieb, Jessica; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; and Soumano, Moumouni. 2024. Unlocking locally-led resilience amid conflict and climate stress: Views from community leaders in Mali on development priorities, aid distribution, and anticipatory action. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2272. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/152260

Country/Region

Mali

Keywords

Africa; Western Africa; Governance; Climate; Conflicts; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

Staking claim to entitlements under MGNREGA: How can women make their demands?

2024Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Ray, Soumyajit
Details

Staking claim to entitlements under MGNREGA: How can women make their demands?

There are internal constraints and structural barriers to women’s claim-making under MGNREGA. Supporting more egalitarian decision-making within the village, designing interventions that can help women gain confidence to speak out in public and making officials more responsive could all help.

Year published

2024

Authors

Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Ray, Soumyajit

Citation

Raghunathan, Kalyani; Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; and Ray, Soumyajit. 2024. Staking claim to entitlements under MGNREGA: How can women make their demands? The India Forum. Published online August 28, 2024. https://www.theindiaforum.in/public-policy/staking-claim-entitlements-under-mgnrega

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Decision Making; Employment; Surveys; Women; Women’s Empowerment

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Gender and age gaps in voice & agency in community governance: The value of female local political representation in India and Africa South of the Sahara under intensifying conflicts and climate uncertainty

2024Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Kyle, Jordan; Kosec, Katrina; Raghunathan, Kalyani
Details

Gender and age gaps in voice & agency in community governance: The value of female local political representation in India and Africa South of the Sahara under intensifying conflicts and climate uncertainty

Expanding women’s voice and agency (VA) within governance and decision-making has increasingly been recognized as necessary for promoting women’s welfare, community development, and inclusive food systems. VA are critical components of gender equality, in addition to access to resources and economic opportunities. While agency relates to an individual’s ability to make meaningful choices (our specific focus is on choices made beyond the household), voice within community governance and decision-making relates to an individual’s ability to play a public role in decision-making processes that affect one’s life. Exercising VA within community governance and decision-making involves having a meaningful say in the public sphere. Women’s VA within communities may strengthen resilience, increase women’s access to essential resources, improve women’s decision-making power in various domains including the household, and facilitate broader social networks for women. Sustainable Development Goal five on gender equality specifically targets the full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership for women at all levels of political life. However, gender gaps in VA are persistent. These gaps can be further aggravated by adverse external shocks, such as climate uncertainty and conflicts, which can impact resources, capital, and economic opportunities and which are often disproportionately harmful to women.

Year published

2024

Authors

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Kyle, Jordan; Kosec, Katrina; Raghunathan, Kalyani

Citation

Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Kyle, Jordan; Kosec, Katrina; and Raghunathan, Kalyani. 2024. Gender and age gaps in voice & agency in community governance: The value of female local political representation in India and Africa South of the Sahara under intensifying conflicts and climate uncertainty. Policy Note August 2024. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Decision Making; Gender; Governance; Politics; Women; Gender Gap; Climate Change

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Brief

Events

From Research to Impact: Towards just and Resilient Agri-food Systems
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

October 9 to 12, 2023

From Research to Impact: Towards just and Resilient Agri-food Systems

Conference: October 09, 2023 – 9:00 AM to October 12, 2023 – 6:00 PM IST. IFPRI is participating in the 2023 annual CGIAR gender research conference will take place in New Delhi, India.

Rethinking Food Crisis Responses
Series/Special Event

 | 

May 11, 2023, 5:00 – 8:45 am

Rethinking Food Crisis Responses

Virtual Event: May 11, 2023 – 5:00 AM to 8:45 AM EDT. Please join the Nigeria presentation of the Report and the launch of the FCM Initiative on May 11 in Abuja, Nigeria, in person or virtually.

News

October 24, 2024 | In the News

At high level dialogue, Stakeholders Rally Support for Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture (National Update/Punch)

This article published by National Update (Nigeria) wrote about a recent high-level dialogue on the CGIAR HER+ initiative in Abuja held on October 9, 2024, that aimed to address barriers women face in Nigeria’s agrifood sector.

June 16, 2023 | In the News

Building popular support for post-conflict constitutions: Lessons from Nepal (The Brookings Institution) 

“In early 2023, the United Nations announced that the world is facing the highest number of violent conflicts since World War II, with a majority of these being civil conflicts. Historically, ending civil conflict and fostering democratic transitions has involved constitutional reforms that address the grievances that originally sparked violence,” write IFPRI research fellow Jordan Kyle and […]

Research

Topics/Countries