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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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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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Research by country and region

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TOPIC

Nutrition

Good nutrition is key to human well-being. Far too many people around the world are affected by malnutrition ranging from undernutrition to problems of overweight, obesity, and diet-related noncommunicable diseases. Improving nutrition requires contributions not only from the health sector but also from sectors as diverse as agriculture, social protection, gender, and education, which together can address the underlying causes of malnutrition.

IFPRI’s nutrition research aims to generate rigorous evidence on what works—and what does not—to prevent malnutrition in low- and middle-income countries. IFPRI’s nutrition research expertise covers nutrition and dietary assessment; infant and young child nutrition; adolescent nutrition; maternal nutrition; and school-based and other multisectoral nutrition programs.

IFPRI is proud of the strong relationships it has built with program implementers, national health and nutrition institutions, policymakers, and other academics, which help us deliver high-quality research and evidence-based advice. Recognizing the multisectoral nature of malnutrition, IFPRI’s nutrition research aligns closely with work on food systems, health, social protection, education and child development, and gender.

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IFPRI’s research on this topic is closely aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG2, SDG3, SDG4, and SDG6, and the CGIAR Impact Areas on Nutrition, Health, and Food Security; Poverty Reduction, Livelihoods and Jobs, and Gender Equality, Youth, and Social Inclusion.

ATS02371NGR Fatima Abdou, in orange, who was trained by Oxfam to work in villages to survey malnutrition levels, give hygiene training sessions, and perform culinary demonstrations, helps a mother feed her baby.

topics

Publications

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Journal Article

Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya

2025Lentz, E.; Jensen, Nathaniel D.; Lepariyo, Watson; Narayanan, S.; Bageant, E.
Details

Adapting the Women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya

Women face a disproportionate burden of malnutrition and food insecurity. Research has shown that women’s empowerment can buffer women against nutritional problems. This paper contributes to ongoing efforts to measure women’s empowerment that are both context-sensitive and universal, focusing on the recently developed Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI). Earlier research has shown it is both a valid construct and positively related to dietary and nutritional outcomes of women in South Asia. We establish that WENI is generalizable to agropastoral and pastoral Kenya, an area with substantially different livelihoods, food system, norms, and institutions than South Asia. We find that a locally contextualized WENI is strongly associated with women’s body mass index and dietary diversity as well as household level food insecurity. We also present findings for two shorter variations of WENI: an abbreviated WENI (A-WENI) and a cross context WENI (CC-WENI). A-WENI contains a small subset of WENI indicators identified using machine learning with South Asian data and therefore is context-specific. CC-WENI does not contain indicators specific to the validation context. We find that they perform comparably well with caveats. Thus, as use of WENI expands we recommend adapting WENI for in-depth analyses of women’s nutritional empowerment; using CC-WENI for cross-context comparisons; and using A-WENI for rapid appraisals of community level progress in a given context.

Year published

2025

Authors

Lentz, E.; Jensen, Nathaniel D.; Lepariyo, Watson; Narayanan, S.; Bageant, E.

Citation

Lentz, E., Jensen, N., Lepariyo, W., Narayanan, S. and Bageant, E. 2024. Adapting the women’s empowerment in nutrition index: Lessons from Kenya. World Development 188: 106887.

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Nutrition; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106887 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Diets, fruit and vegetables consumption, and nutritional status in Benin: A scoping review

2025Bliznashka, Lilia; Pather, Kamara; Mitchodigni, Irene M.; Hess, Sonja Y.; Olney, Deanna K.
Details

Diets, fruit and vegetables consumption, and nutritional status in Benin: A scoping review

Unhealthy diets, including low fruit and vegetables (F&V) intake, contribute to morbidity and mortality related to non-communicable diseases. Designing culturally appropriate interventions to improve diets and F&V intake requires an in-depth understanding of individual-level dietary patterns, household consumption patterns, and nutritional status resulting from inadequate F&V intake. In this scoping review, we summarised the literature on diets, F&V intake, and nutritional status in Benin. We searched PubMed from 2012 to August 2024 to identify articles on diets and nutritional status, and from 2002 to August 2024 to identify articles on F&V intake. We included 36 articles on diets, 27 on F&V intake, and 16 on nutritional status. Existing literature demonstrated that Beninese diets are cereal-based and monotonous, characterised by low diversity and low F&V intake across all population groups. Available evidence indicated a high burden of undernutrition in children <5 years of age, a rising prevalence of overnutrition in women of reproductive age, and a high prevalence of overnutrition in adults. Evidence on how diets and F&V intake vary by urban/rural location, season, and socioeconomic characteristics was limited and inconsistent. Two evaluations of garden irrigation programmes assessed impacts on women's dietary diversity and F&V consumption. Additional research is needed to improve our understanding of diets, F&V intake, and diet-related nutritional challenges and how they evolve over time and across different population groups. Understanding these gaps can help identify entry points and targets for interventions to improve diet quality and F&V intake in Benin.

Year published

2025

Authors

Bliznashka, Lilia; Pather, Kamara; Mitchodigni, Irene M.; Hess, Sonja Y.; Olney, Deanna K.

Citation

Bliznashka, Lilia; Pather, Kamara; Mitchodigni, Irene M.; Hess, Sonja Y.; and Olney, Deanna K. Diets, fruit and vegetables consumption, and nutritional status in Benin: A scoping review. Maternal and Child Nutrition. Article in Press. First published online on December 10, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13747

Country/Region

Benin

Keywords

Sub-saharan Africa; Western Africa; Africa; Diet; Fruits; Vegetables; Non-communicable Diseases; Household Consumption; Nutrition; Research; Children; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13747 Source record

Project

Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets

Record type

Journal Article

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Brief

Malawi: Systematic analysis of climate and world market shocks

2024Mukashov, Askar; Duchoslav, Jan; Kankwamba, Henry; Jones, Eleanor; Thurlow, James
Details

Malawi: Systematic analysis of climate and world market shocks

This study explores Malawi’s vulnerability to economic and climatic shocks and identifies those contributing most to economic uncertainty. The Malawian Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model was employed to simu late a range of potential economic outcomes under various sampled shock scenarios developed using historical data to capture domestic agricultural yield volatilities and world market prices uncertainty for traded goods. Data mining and machine learning methods were applied to quantify the contribution of each shock to the un certainty of economic outcomes (gross domestic product [GDP], private consumption, poverty, and undernour ishment). Key findings suggest that domestic cereals and oilseeds yield volatility risks are the most important for the uncertainty of total GDP and consumption across all household types except rural low-income households. Rural low-income households’ consumption and poverty are exposed to a wide range of risks, including produc tivity volatility of livestock, yield volatility of oilseeds, cereals, and vegetables and world market price of beverage crops. Finally, for undernourishment outcomes, volatility in the yields of staple cereals is the dominant risk factor for all household types. Understanding how possible shocks would impact various segments of the Malawian economy and population is a critical first step in facilitating discussions on relevant risk mitigation strategies, such as increasing average crop yields, adopting technologies and practices that narrow yield uncertainties, or diversifying production away from risky crops and sectors.

Year published

2024

Authors

Mukashov, Askar; Duchoslav, Jan; Kankwamba, Henry; Jones, Eleanor; Thurlow, James

Citation

Mukashov, Askar; Duchoslav, Jan; Kankwamba, Henry; Jones, Eleanor; and Thurlow, James. 2024. Malawi: Systematic analysis of climate and world market shocks. Economywide Risk Assessment Country Brief 3. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Malawi

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Shock; Economic Shock; Computable General Equilibrium Models; Agriculture; Market Prices; Poverty; Nutrition; Crop Yield; Machine Learning; Climate

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Brief

Blogs

Africa Food Systems Forum Summit 2024: Advancing gender equality and nutrition for sustainable agriculture
IFPRI Blog
 | 
November 19, 2024

Africa Food Systems Forum Summit 2024: Advancing gender equality and nutrition for sustainable agriculture

By Faith Gikunda

Building equity into food systems.

The impact of innovative evidence-to-policy approaches on accelerating nutrition-related SDGs: Can the NiPN model lead the way?
IFPRI Blog
 | 
November 15, 2024

The impact of innovative evidence-to-policy approaches on accelerating nutrition-related SDGs: Can the NiPN model lead the way?

By Taddese Zerfu

Bridging the gap between research and policymaking.

Global Food Policy Report 2024: Leveraging plant-source foods for sustainable healthy diets
IFPRI Blog
 | 
November 04, 2024

Global Food Policy Report 2024: Leveraging plant-source foods for sustainable healthy diets

By Erick Boy, Inge Brouwer, Jen Foley, Natalia Palacios, Samuel Scott, and Victor Taleon

Integrating more fruits, vegetables, and other high-quality crops into food systems.

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Events

2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

December 9 to 10, 2024

2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum

IFPRI is pleased to participate in the “2024 Global Child Nutrition Forum”. The Global Child Nutrition Foundation works with a global network of governments, businesses, and civil society organizations to support school meal programs that help children and communities thrive. GCNF provides training, technical assistance, and networking opportunities to help governments build national school meal […]

WTO Annual Agriculture Symposium 2024
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

December 9, 2024, 10:00 – 7:00 pm

WTO Annual Agriculture Symposium 2024

The livestream will be available HERE on December 9, 2024 from 10:00am to 7:00pm (CET) / 4:00am to 1:00pm (EST). This year’s Annual Agriculture Symposium aims to explore the critical intersections between global trade policies, food systems, and nutrition outcomes. In a world where international trade has the potential to both alleviate and exacerbate malnutrition, […]

SPIR II RFSA Learning Event: Impact results workshops
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

December 9 to 10, 2024

SPIR II RFSA Learning Event: Impact results workshops

December 9, 2024 | 9:30am to 12:00pm (Africa/Addis_Ababa) | Video Recording | Presentation December 9, 2024 | 1:00pm to 3:30pm (Africa/Addis_Ababa) | Video Recording | Presentation December 10, 2024 | 9:30am to 12:45pm (Africa/Addis_Ababa) | Video Recording | Presentation Click HERE to view the agenda. The Strengthen PSNP Institutions and Resilience (SPIR II) Resilience Food […]

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News

December 03, 2024 | Press Release

UNICEF, WFP and WHO join forces in global efforts to improve nutrition for children and women in humanitarian crises

The partnership includes the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) as the global research partner.

July 02, 2024 | Press Release

Global crisis: 1.7 billion people in urban and peri-urban areas face food insecurity

New UN report highlights urgent need to strengthen urban and peri-urban food systems for global food security and nutrition.

May 29, 2024 | Press Release

The 2024 Global Food Policy Report Stresses Urgent Need for Transformative Action to Achieve Sustainable Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition

Washington DC, May 29, 2024: In the face of growing challenges posed by unhealthy diets, all forms of malnutrition, and environmental constraints, the 2024 Global Food Policy Report (GFPR) — released today by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) — underscores the importance of transforming complex global food systems to ensure sustainable healthy diets for all. Progress […]

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Our experts

Daniel Gilligan

Daniel Gilligan

Director, Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion (PGI), Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Purnima Menon

Purnima Menon

Senior Director, Food and Nutrition Policy, CGIAR and IFPRI, Markets,
Trade, and Institutions, Nutrition, Diets, and Health, Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Deanna Olney

Deanna Olney

Director, Nutrition, Diets, and Health (NDH), Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Mulubrhan Amare

Mulubrhan Amare

Senior Research Fellow, Development
Strategies and Governance

Rasmi Avula

Rasmi Avula

Research Fellow, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Neha Kumar

Neha Kumar

Senior Research Fellow, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Marie Ruel

Marie Ruel

Senior Research Fellow, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health

Razin Kabir

Razin Kabir

Senior Program Manager, Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Soyra Gune

Soyra Gune

Research Analyst, Nutrition,
Diets, and Health