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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.

Ahmed Akhter

researcher spotlight

Akhter Ahmed

Akhter Ahmed is a Senior Research Fellow in the IFPRI’s Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit and Country Representative for IFPRI Bangladesh. He has worked on strategies for agricultural and rural development, social protection, and women’s empowerment to reduce poverty, food insecurity, and undernutrition in developing countries including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Malawi, the Philippines, and Turkey.

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What we do

Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

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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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Projects

Evaluating the Impacts of Agricultural Development Programming on Gender Inequalities, Asset Disparities, and Rural Livelihoods

The project looks at a variety of agricultural development projects to what is the impact of these projects on men’s and women’s assets with assets defined quite broadly (for example, livestock, genetic resources, equipment, access to markets, extension, social capital, human capital and so on) and whether gender targeting makes a difference in terms of outcomes.

Project duration: 2009 – 2023

Funders

Gates Foundation

United States of America

CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) led by IFPRI

Project partners

African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD)

BRAC University

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)

Radical Inclusion

Gender-Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transform (GREAT)

Publications

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Book Chapter

Gender research: Metrics and policies for greater equity and inclusion

2025Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Heckert, Jessica; Kramer, Berber; Van Campenhout, Bjorn
Details

Gender research: Metrics and policies for greater equity and inclusion

Research on gender in development has evolved in parallel with the growing awareness of women’s role in economic development, the importance of gender relations both within and outside the household, and the recognition that women’s empowerment and gender equality are important goals in themselves. This chapter examines the evolution of gender research in the context of the development discourse on gender, focusing on agrifood systems, and identifies major challenges that future research should address. Book link: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174108

Year published

2025

Authors

Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Heckert, Jessica; Kramer, Berber; Van Campenhout, Bjorn

Citation

Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth S.; Malapit, Hazel J.; Heckert, Jessica; Kramer, Berber; and Van Campenhout, Bjorn. 2025. Gender research: Metrics and policies for greater equity and inclusion. In Global food policy report 2025: Food policy: Lessons and priorities for a changing world, eds. Johan Swinnen and Christopher Barrett. Part Four: Transforming Lives and Livelihoods, Chapter 14, Pp. 341-364. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/174349

Keywords

Gender; Research; Policies; Gender Equity; Social Inclusion; Intersectionality; Demographic Transition; Women’s Empowerment

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Working Paper

Empowerment after migration: Exploring the association between migration and the empowerment of women who stay behind

2024Ceballos, Francisco; Heckert, Jessica; Hernandez, Manuel A.; Paz, Florencia
Details

Empowerment after migration: Exploring the association between migration and the empowerment of women who stay behind

Migration is a recurrent global phenomenon that has rapidly increased over the past decades. As of 2020, there were 281 million international migrants (equivalent to 3.6 percent of the global population), a 27 percent increase compared to the 221 million in 2010 (UN DESA 2020). Even though COVID-19 slowed international migration, it is quickly returning to pre-pandemic levels. Approximately half of migrants are men, and a third are youth (15-24 year olds). Western Europe and the United States receive the most international migrants, and most migrants originate from rural areas, which receive around 40% of international remittances (Food and Agriculture Organization 2018). Domestically, there were around 763 million of internal migrants as of 2013, equivalent to around 12 percent of the global population (United Nations Population Division, 2013). Whether international or domestic, a large share of migrants is forced to leave their homes due to multiple reasons that include socioeconomic, climatic, and conflict factors, which may also act as compound shocks, such that migration similarly represents an important adaptation strategy that can help improve livelihoods, build resilience, and protect against fragility.

Year published

2024

Authors

Ceballos, Francisco; Heckert, Jessica; Hernandez, Manuel A.; Paz, Florencia

Citation

Ceballos, Francisco; Heckert, Jessica; Hernandez, Manuel; and Paz, Florencia. 2024. Empowerment after migration: Exploring the association between migration and the empowerment of women who stay behind. Fragility, Conflict, and Migration Initiative. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/168433

Keywords

Migration; Women’s Empowerment; Gender; Livelihoods; Resilience

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fragility, Conflict, and Migration

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Do empowerment impacts endure? The medium-term impacts of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) Project in Bangladesh

2024Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Ahmed, Akhter; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena
Details

Do empowerment impacts endure? The medium-term impacts of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) Project in Bangladesh

Whether impacts of development interventions are sustainable has attracted much recent interest (examples include Bandiera et al., 2017, Banerjee et al., 2021, Blattman et al., 2020, Carneiro et al., 2021, Grisolia, 2024, and Haushofer and Shapiro, 2018). When interventions involve trained facilitators, for example, it is of interest to know whether effects persist once these facilitators are no longer delivering the message (Ahmed et al, forthcoming). The recognition of women’s empowerment and gender equality as intrinsically important has spawned a growing literature on the impacts of development interventions on women’s empowerment (Quisumbing et al. 2023, Quisumbing et al. 2024) and attitudes towards gender roles (Alderman et al. 2025). Yet, with few exceptions (Alderman et al. 2025) there is little overlap between these two areas of work, in large part because many impact evaluations fail to follow up after the initial evaluation is completed. A synthesis of findings from a portfolio of 11 agricultural development projects in South Asia and Africa suggests that, while projects are able to affect aspects of empowerment such as decisionmaking over resources and control over income, changes in gender norms are more difficult to achieve in the two to three year time span over which impact evaluations are typically conducted(Quisumbing et al. 2024). If women’s empowerment interventions aim ultimately to change gender norms, to detect impacts, they should be measured over a sufficiently long period of time to allow for norm change.

Year published

2024

Authors

Quisumbing, Agnes R.; Ahmed, Akhter; Hoddinott, John F.; Rakshit, Deboleena

Citation

Quisumbing, Agnes; Ahmed, Akhter; Hoddinott, John; and Rakshit, Deboleena. 2024. Do empowerment impacts endure? The medium-term impacts of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Gender Linkages (ANGeL) Project in Bangladesh. Gender Equality Initiative Working Paper. CGIAR System Organization. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/168520

Country/Region

Bangladesh

Keywords

Southern Asia; Women’s Empowerment; Gender Norms; Development Policies; Agriculture; Diets; Nutrition

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Gender Equality

Record type

Working Paper

Blogs

Adapt, assess, progress: Integrating measures of women’s empowerment into rural development projects
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 13, 2024

Adapt, assess, progress: Integrating measures of women’s empowerment into rural development projects

By Carlo Azzarri, Sedi-Anne Boukaka, Jessica Heckert, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Greg Seymour, and Sara Savastano

A new tool developed by IFPRI and IFAD.

Policy seminar: New pro-WEAI modules gauge women’s empowerment in nutrition and health, market inclusion
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 26, 2023

Policy seminar: New pro-WEAI modules gauge women’s empowerment in nutrition and health, market inclusion

By Simone Faas

An expanding toolkit for assessing key gender issues in development projects.

Time-use agency: A new measure of women’s empowerment
IFPRI Blog
 | 
July 02, 2021

Time-use agency: A new measure of women’s empowerment

By Sarah Eissler, Jessica Heckert, Emily Myers, Greg Seymour, Sheela Sinharoy, Kathryn M. Yount, and Jessica Wallach

A more nuanced approach to gauging women's strategic choices about time and work.

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Events

Assessing Progress toward Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

September 19, 2023, 1:30 – 4:30 pm

Assessing Progress toward Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects

Hybrid Event: September 19, 2023 – 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM CEST. This event will provide a platform for implementers and partners to discuss approaches that have worked to empower women across projects and identify implications for future programming and scaling up.

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

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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 […]

Project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Pro-WEAI) Learning and Outreach Event
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

April 25 to 27, 2018

Project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Pro-WEAI) Learning and Outreach Event

The event “Pro-WEAI: A New Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Development Projects” is a “soft launch” of the index and its associated nutrition module as a tool for measuring and assessing the impact of agricultural development projects on women’s empowerment in agriculture. The project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) is a new […]

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Funders

Gates Foundation
United States of America
CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) led by IFPRI

Team members

No staff members to display.
Hazel Malapit

Hazel Malapit

Senior Research Coordinator, Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Rasmi Avula

Rasmi Avula

Research Fellow, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Neha Kumar

Neha Kumar

Senior Research Fellow, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Emily Myers

Emily Myers

Senior Research Analyst, Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Shalini Roy

Shalini Roy

Senior Research Fellow, Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Other

Related Projects

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