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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.

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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.

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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.

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Development Strategies and Governance

Sudha Narayanan

Research Fellow

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Bio

Sudha Narayanan is a Research Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in the South Asia Office in New Delhi. Sudha’s research interests span agriculture, food and nutrition policy, and human development. She is particularly interested in survey-based research using microeconometric approaches to understand broader questions of agrarian change and state delivery systems for nutrition security. Her research focuses on contract farming, agrifood value chains, technology adoption in agriculture, public policies for food security and employment, and agriculture-nutrition linkages.

Sudha was previously an Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai. Prior to her PhD studies, she worked with the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, the Right to Food Campaign in India, and Cornell University, among others. She earned a PhD from Cornell University in Agricultural Economics. She also holds a dual master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India.

Development Strategies and Governance

Publications

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Working Paper

Claim-making under India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Barriers and opportunities for women’s voice and agency over asset selection

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

Claim-making under India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Barriers and opportunities for women’s voice and agency over asset selection

This paper examines the dynamics of women’s claim-making within the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme in India, focusing on their participation in selecting durable assets for climate resilience. Despite legal entitlements and protections for women within the program, gender disparities persist in claiming public resources. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach including surveys and qualitative interviews, the study uncovers various pathways to women’s claim-making, influenced by factors such as gender norms around mobility and women’s voice and agency, internal barriers and constraints including comfort in public speaking, and knowledge of the program and its various procedures for selecting assets. While challenges to women’s effective participation remain, findings from our analysis suggest potential for interventions to reduce gender gaps and enhance inclusivity in planning processes. Moreover, the study underscores the importance of recognizing diverse claim-making pathways to promote inclusion effectively within the program.

Year published

2024

Authors

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

Citation

Kosec, Katrina; Kyle, Jordan; Narayanan, Sudha; Raghunathan, Kalyani; and Ray, Soumyajit. 2024. Claim-making under India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA): Barriers and opportunities for women’s voice and agency over asset selection. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2247. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Climate Resilience; Gender Equality; Infrastructure; Women’s Empowerment; Employment; Women’s Participation; Gender Norms; Governance

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

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Journal Article

The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries

2024Headey, Derek D.; Alderman, Harold; Hoddinott, John; Narayanan, Sudha
Details

The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries

Dairy products have an exceptionally rich nutrient profile and have long been promoted in high income countries to redress child malnutrition. But given all this potential, and the high burden of undernutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), why isn’t dairy consumption more actively promoted in the developing world? In this review we focus on a broadly defined concept of “dairy development” to include production, trade, marketing, regulation, and demand stimulation. We address three key questions. First, how strong is the evidence on the importance of dairy production and consumption for improving nutrition among young children in LMICs? Second, which regions have the lowest consumption of dairy products? Third, what are the supply- and demand-side challenges that prevent LMICs from expanding dairy consumption? We argue that although more nutrition- and consumer-oriented dairy development interventions have tremendous potential to redress undernutrition in LMICs, the pathways for achieving this development are highly context-specific: LMICs with significant agroecological potential for dairy production primarily require institutional solutions for the complex marketing challenges in perishable milk value chains; lower potential LMICs require consumer-oriented trade and industrial approaches to the sector’s development. And all dairy strategies require a stronger focus on cross-cutting issues of nutrition education and demand creation, food safety and quality, gender and inclusiveness, and environmental sustainability and resilience. We conclude our review by emphasizing important areas for research and policy expansion.

Year published

2024

Authors

Headey, Derek D.; Alderman, Harold; Hoddinott, John; Narayanan, Sudha

Citation

Headey, Derek D.; Alderman, Harold; Hoddinott, John; and Narayanan, Sudha. 2024. The glass of milk half-empty? Dairy development and nutrition in low and middle income countries. Food Policy 122(January 2024): 102585. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102585

Keywords

Child Stunting; Malnutrition; Milk Production; Nutrition Education; Value Chains

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2023.102585 Source record

Project

Agriculture for Nutrition and Health

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Shocks and the determinants of resilience: Fish and shrimp value chains in Bangladesh after Covid-19

2023Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Narayanan, Sudha; Rashid, Shahidur
Details

Shocks and the determinants of resilience: Fish and shrimp value chains in Bangladesh after Covid-19

There is little systematic evidence on the resilience of South Asian agri‐food value chains since the onset of Covid‐19. Using two rounds of surveys of 1751 fish and shrimp value chain actors in Bangladesh, this paper undertakes two sets of tasks: (a) analyzes business continuity (closures and resumptions) and its implications for household food security, and (b) adapts a ten‐item measure of subjective resilience and examines its predictors: diversity, scope, scale, vertical integration, and cluster effects. Results show that recent closures are linked to Covid‐19, suggesting that firms were only able to sustain operations for a period of 8–9 months before folding due to cumulative stresses; and that the degree of resilience varies significantly across value chains and the segments within them. Interestingly, contrary to established stylized facts, clusters appear to be negatively correlated with resilience, indicating that cooperation among value chain actors within a cluster breaks down under large‐scale covariate shocks. The implications of these and other key findings are discussed.

Year published

2023

Authors

Kabir, Razin Iqbal; Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Narayanan, Sudha; Rashid, Shahidur

Citation

Kabir, Razin; Bin Khaled, Muhammad Nahian; Narayanan, Sudha; and Rashid, Shahidur. Shocks and the determinants of resilience: Fish and shrimp value chains in Bangladesh after Covid-19. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 45(4): 1835-1862. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13356

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Asia; Value Chains; Stress; Shrimp Culture; Coronavirus; Covid-19; Households; Enterprises; Coronavirinae; Agrifood Systems; Fish; Food Security; Coronavirus Disease; Shocks; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13356 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Inspirational filmmaking to raise women’s voice and agency in the construction of assets for climate resilience in India
IFPRI Blog
 | 
December 26, 2023

Inspirational filmmaking to raise women’s voice and agency in the construction of assets for climate resilience in India

By Jordan Kyle, Katrina Kosec, Sudha Narayanan, and Kalyani Raghunathan

Compelling personal stories as a learning and motivational tool.

How India’s agrifood supply chains fared during the COVID-19 lockdown, from farm to fork
IFPRI Blog
 | 
July 20, 2020

How India’s agrifood supply chains fared during the COVID-19 lockdown, from farm to fork

By Sudha Narayanan

Food systems have proven more resilient than many expected, but vulnerable populations still need help.

Events

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Transforming Diets
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

November 9 to 10, 2022

Delivering for Nutrition in South Asia: Transforming Diets

Hybrid Event: November 9, 2022 – 4:30 PM to November 10, 2022 – 6:30 PM GMT. The purpose of this conference is to synthesize relevant evidence and stimulate dialogue to inform and guide policy and program initiatives in South Asia for improving equitable access to and consumption of healthy diets.

COVID-19 & Global Food Security: 2 Years Later
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

March 7, 2022, 9:30 – 11:00 am

COVID-19 & Global Food Security: 2 Years Later

Virtual Event: March 7, 2022 – 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM EST. During this book launch presenters will share lessons learned and key issues that should be considered looking forward.

News

April 17, 2023 | In the News

MGNREGA attendance app a govt ploy to discourage workers, contain expenses? (The Federal) 

The Federal (India) writes in a piece that “workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are now required to mark attendance twice a day with onsite, geo-tagged photos through the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) app.  Sudha Narayanan a researcher at IFPRI, has evaluated MGNREGA through studies and surveys since it […]

December 22, 2020 | In the News

MSP–The factoids vs. the facts (The Hindu)

The Hindu published an op-ed by Reteeka Khera, Senior Research Fellow Sudha Narayanan, and  Prankur Gupta on the purpose of the MSP and the debate on agricultural issues that must take into account the changed geography of procurement and the seller’s profile. 

December 15, 2020 | In the News

MSP–The factoids vs. the facts (The Hindu)

The Hindu published an op-ed by Reteeka Khera, Senior Research Fellow Sudha Rayanan, and  Prankur Gupta on the purpose of the MSP and the debate on agricultural issues that must take into account the changed geography of procurement and the seller’s profile.