Publications

When the cure is worse than the disease: Acaricide use, tick resistance, and systemic constraints in Uganda’s dairy sector

The Ugandan dairy sector has expanded rapidly in recent years. However, ticks and tick-borne diseases pose increasing challenges to this progress, exacerbated by the rise in resistance to acaricides, the primary method for tick control. This paper examines the systemic constraints that undermine effective, safe, and sustainable tick control in Uganda’s liberalized dairy system. Drawing on multiple complementary data sources—including household surveys, exit interviews, list experiments, and covert audit methods—we show that the de facto farmer-led model of tick control is characterized by failures in information, coordination challenges, imperfect input markets, and weak regulation. Farmers operate with limited technical knowledge and minimal advisory support, and under extensive grazing systems and frequent inter-herd contact that require coordinated approaches to tick control. Input markets provide access to acaricides, but little guidance on proper use. As a result, misuse and overuse of chemicals are widespread, generating risks for animal and human well-being, food safety, and environmental integrity. Addressing these constraints will require integrated interventions that strengthen extension and regulatory capacity, improve accountability in veterinary input markets, and foster community-level coordination to ensure safe and sustainable tick control.

Closing the regulatory gap: Experimental evidence on oversight and worker incentives

Weak enforcement of regulatory standards is widespread in low- and middle-income countries. Low firm capacity and standards inappropriate to local contexts imply that traditional punitive enforcement approaches may be counterproductive. We test the impact of a regulatory oversight intervention leveraging the soft power of meat inspectors in the context of 140 rural slaughterhouses in western Kenya. The intervention focused meat inspector attention on hygiene practices and was combined with training of workers and provision of basic equipment and supplies. Practices improved significantly relative to control facilities, but microbial contamination of meat did not. Outcomes were similar in a subset of treatment facilities where workers were additionally given a hygiene performance incentive. Higher volume of business in treatment facilities, which customers perceived as cleaner, suggests that retailers value less contaminated meat, but may counteract the effects of improved practices through cross-contamination and crowding.

Evaluating humanitarian assistance for food security and resilience during the lean season in the Sahel pre-analysis plan

This pre-analysis plan details the evaluation of a lean-season humanitarian assistance program implemented from July-September 2025 in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. The intervention addresses acute food insecurity during the lean season, a period when food stocks are depleted and food prices peak. Interventions combine food or cash/vouchers assistance with nutrition support, WASH activities, and genderbased protection measures, adapted to the local contexts in each country. Despite the annual occurrence of lean season, important questions remain. What is the impact of the lean season on household welfare, including the dietary intake and food security of women and children under five? Can seasonal transfers mitigate the impacts of seasonal deprivation? This evaluation applies a mixed-methods multi-country design. In the main analysis, we will use a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits both temporal variation and treatment status across households, drawing on approximately 3,000 households surveyed at baseline and endline. Primary outcomes include household food security and food consumption, child dietary intake, and use of harmful coping strategies. Secondary outcomes include women’s empowerment, resilience to shocks, and community disputes / cohesion. The study also incorporates process evaluation of implementation fidelity and contextual adaptations. This study contributes to the literature on seasonality and food security in the Sahel and can inform policy on linking crisis response with resilience-building in fragile countries.

Insecticide use, farmers’ self-reported health status, and genetically modified cowpea in Nigeria: Findings from a clustered randomized controlled trial with causal

Excessive insecticide use in smallholder agriculture can threaten human health and the environment. We evaluate the effects of receiving a genetically modified cowpea variety that confers resistance to the legume pod borer (Maruca vitrata) using a clustered randomized controlled trial with an encouragement design in Nigeria. We find that farmers who received the pod borer-resistant (PBR) cowpea with complementary inputs significantly reduce insecticide volumes and report fewer days of insecticide-related illness compared to farmers who only received a conventional cowpea variety. Farmers receiving PBR cowpea alone experience smaller, mostly insignificant reductions. To explore heterogeneous responses, we combine ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) interactions with machine learning-based Causal Forest estimates of Conditional Average Treatment Effects (CATEs). Results reveal that smaller, less wealthy, and labor-constrained households experience the largest reductions in insecticide use and health improvements, whereas wealthier farmers or those with higher baseline spraying practices experience lower reductions. Women-managed plots exhibit modestly higher responsiveness. Our findings highlight the importance of moving beyond average effects and seed distribution toward targeted, context-specific interventions that account for behavioral and resource constraints in smallholder farming systems.

The two sides of migration in Central America: Distributional impacts in Guatemala

International migration has become a defining force shaping Guatemala’s economy, with both outflows and return inflows generating diverse impacts across economic sectors, labor markets, and household welfare. This study quantifies the economy-wide and distributional impacts of these migration dynamics using a modeling framework that integrates detailed microdata on migration profiles. Three scenarios are considered: a reference case reflecting recent-historical migration patterns (MIG-0), moderately restricted migration (MIG-1), and net return migration (MIG-2), capturing newly emerging shifts in emigration and return flows by skill level within the country. Results reveal trade-offs between aggregate economic performance and distributional impacts across households. Compared to a baseline economy with no mobility, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rises modestly under the reference scenario (+0.2%) and by an additional 0.3-0.5 percentage points under the more restrictive cases, driven by higher labor availability from returnees and currency depreciation. Non-agro-processing manufacturing shows the largest expansion (up to 1.8%), reflecting its strong labor-absorption potential. Household welfare, however, is highly sensitive to remittance flows, with income and consumption declining under the restrictive scenarios. These findings underscore the need for policies that facilitate returnee reintegration and strengthen social protection for remittance-dependent households, ensuring that the macroeconomic gains from migration adjustments translate into equitable welfare improvements.

Strategic plan of the IFPRI program on fragile and conflict-affected food systems (FCAS): 2026-2029

Humanitarian crises are becoming more frequent, protracted, and complex. Fragility, conflict, climate extremes, and displacement increasingly converge to undermine food security, disrupt livelihoods, and erode community resilience across dozens of countries. In these settings, humanitarian actors face enormous pressure to deliver assistance in ways that are timely, inclusive, accountable, and aligned with the needs and priorities of affected populations. Further, governments demand evidence on what policies, programming, and other investments can support prevention, recovery, and resilience. In the current funding environment, global humanitarian financing is stretched thinner than ever, making improvements in effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of humanitarian actions all the more urgent.

The IFPRI Program on Fragile and Conflict-Affected Food Systems (FCAS) responds to these challenges by generating practical, policy-relevant evidence on what works to support food security and resilience in FCAS, with a focus on who benefits, under what conditions, and at what cost. Through long-standing engagement in countries such as Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Sudan, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, and Yemen, the Program supports governments, UN agencies, International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), and local NGOs to strengthen food systems in fragile contexts and improve outcomes for crisis-affected children, women, households, and communities.

To make the Program’s rigorous research and evidence generation effective, it relies on deep partnership, local engagement, and a commitment to translating evidence into real-world change. Its work spans crisis anticipation and prevention; monitoring and crisis response; and recovery and resilience. It also considers two key cross-cutting areas: governance and accountability; and gender equality and inclusion. Across all of these areas, the Program advances locally-led approaches and elevates the voices and leadership of affected populations.

IFPRI’s institutional strategy and its four-pronged approach to research and impact guide the Program; its work in FCAS aims to: (1) position major development challenges on policy agendas, (2) build scalable high-impact solutions, (3) strengthen governance and financing mechanisms, and (4) deploy tools, methods, and capabilities for research and policy impact. The Program supports humanitarian systems reform by generating new evidence on effective program design features; exploring means of strengthening governance and social inclusion; and supporting coordination across humanitarian, development, and peace actors. This Strategic Plan outlines how the Program operates, what it contributes, and how it sustains a unique role for IFPRI within the global humanitarian ecosystem.

Out-of-sample validation of the external and internal Migration Propensity Index (MPI) in Honduras

The external and internal Migration Propensity Indices (e-MPI and i-MPI) are tools to objectively estimate the probability that individuals from a given household will, respectively, migrate abroad or migrate domestically in the near future. We use new longitudinal data to test their predictive performance fully out of sample. We find that households classified as being of high-propensity to migrate by the e-MPI were significantly more likely to migrate abroad within 24 months (10.7%) than medium- and low-propensity groups (8.8% and 5.3%). For domestic migration, the i-MPI shows an even stronger gradient (19.6% versus 8.5% and 3.5%, respectively). Regression models confirm that both indices outperform alternative predictors—including income, climate shocks, crime, and migration intent—and maintain predictive power across rural and urban areas. Placebo tests indicate that the e-MPI and i-MPI capture distinct dimensions of migration behavior, validating their use for targeting and monitoring migration-related interventions. Overall, the MPIs emerge as simple yet statistically robust tools that reliably predict both international and domestic migration, offering a practical and scalable solution to help governments and development agencies anticipate migration trends and allocate resources strategically.

How can community grants promote gender-inclusive development in fragile settings? Insights from rural Nigeria

Community-driven development (CDD) programs aim to shift decision-making to the local level by empowering communities to prioritize, design, and implement projects that address their most pressing needs. These programs have gained global traction as vehicles for service delivery and empowerment, especially in fragile contexts with weak state capacity. These programs leverage communities’ understanding of local needs and their unique ability to deploy resources in conflict-affected, unstable, or highly remote areas that are operationally hard to reach for traditional development programs. However, evidence remains limited on how to structure CDD programs to ensure inclusive participation from a wide range of community members, particularly women, who tend to participate in community and public affairs at lower levels than men in these settings (Takeshima et al., 2024).

Urban Food Environments and Diets (UFED) food environment assessment guidance

This guidance document is linked to the UFED web tool and meant to be shared in conjunction with use of an online decision-making tool for planning dietary and food environment assessments in urban and peri-urban areas.

Included documents:
Community and Market Mapping

In-Depth Vendor Assessment - Food Availability

Food and Beverage Promotion

Show me the money! Experimental evidence on preferences for cash vs. digital payment

In places such as rural Bangladesh, cash is the dominant medium for payments despite potential benefits of digital payments. We offer survey respondents an incentive-compatible choice for compensation: 200 Taka cash or randomly varied mobile money amounts (200-400 Taka). Only eight percent chose digital payment at parity and respondents exhibit an average willingness-to-pay of 43 percent of the payment value to receive cash payment. This preference persists across demographics, including among mobile money account holders. Within-household analysis reveals that 77 percent of the effect stems from individual-level rather than household-level factors, highlighting the importance of demand-side barriers on digital payments.

Urban Food Environments and Diets (UFED) dietary assessment guidance

This guidance document is linked to the UFED web tool and meant to be shared in conjunction with use of an online decision-making tool for planning dietary and food environment assessments in urban and peri-urban areas.

Included documents:
24-Hour Recall

Diet Quality Questionnaire

Food Frequency Questionnaire

Observed Weighted Food Record

How local leaders view transparency and local autonomy in humanitarian aid distribution: Evidence from Mali

Recognizing the pivotal role local governance plays in crisis response and the diversity of local conditions even within a single country context, this article examines variation in preferences over humanitarian aid delivery among local leaders in Mali. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork and a survey of 2,919 local leaders across the country, we investigate leaders’ preferences over two key dimensions of aid governance: local autonomy over targeting and distribution and transparency over aid delivery. Using aid profile vignettes to elicit preferences over these attributes, we find that leaders generally favor approaches that combine both greater local control and greater transparency, viewing transparency as complementary to autonomy rather than constraining. Preferences, however, vary by leaders’ position and by context: outsiders to aid governance demand more transparency, and leaders’ relative trust in local aid committees versus donors predicts preferences for autonomy. Leaders in conflict-affected villages place greater value on autonomy and less on transparency, highlighting how insecurity reshapes aid preferences in fragile settings.

Updating yield growth rates in the IMPACT model to enhance global analysis of the future of agriculture

Changes in yields of food commodities are key drivers—and consequences—of changes in agriculture and food systems. Simulation models used to explore the future of agriculture require initial assumptions about baseline levels and changes in yields as a starting point and then can be used to analyze how those yields are affected by the dynamic interaction between changes in demand, markets, technology, climate and other factors. This paper reports on how critical initial yield assumptions have recently been reviewed and updated in the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). This paper is aimed at a technical audience interested in core details of the IMPACT modeling framework and is a follow-up to the latest full model documentation (Robinson et al 2024).

IMPACT was developed at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) at the beginning of the 1990s to address a lack of long-term vision and consensus among policymakers and researchers about the actions necessary to feed the world in the future, reduce poverty, and protect the natural resource base. Over time, this economic model has been expanded and improved, and IMPACT is now a system of linked models around a core multimarket economic model of global production, trade, demand, and prices for agricultural commodities. IMPACT supports integrated analysis of the implications of physical, biophysical, and socioeconomic trends and phenomena, allowing for varied and in-depth analysis on a variety of key issues of interest to policymakers. As a flexible policy analysis tool, IMPACT has been used to research linkages between agricultural production and food security at the national and regional levels. IMPACT also has been used in commodity-level scenario analyses and has contributed to thematic and interdisciplinary scenario-based projects. IMPACT is one of major global models of the agriculture sector, but because of its high level of commodity and geographic disaggregation, it plays a particularly important role in analyzing patterns of agricultural productivity growth around the world.

Potential commodity yields are key drivers in the IMPACT baseline scenario and an important lever influenced by investment and policy scenarios. The baseline assumptions about exogenous growth in crop and livestock yields are referred to in IMPACT as “intrinsic productivity growth rates” (IPRs). This paper describes the approach developed to review and update the IPRs to reflect recent trends and incorporate expert1 opinion, making the yield projections more transparent, inclusive, and efficient, and more consistent across CGIAR centers, improving projections and enhancing policy relevance. The remaining sections include a description of the IMPACT Model, the methods for updating the IPRs using projections based on FAOSTAT data and expert consultations, the findings related to the IPRs from each of the expert consultations, and a description of the process used to incorporate the findings from the consultations into IMPACT and concludes with discussion. A description of the Power BI tool used to support the expert consultations is presented in Appendix A.

Digital tool integration, biodiversity, and the potato value chain in Kenya: Results from a baseline survey

Potato farmers in Kenya grapple with various challenges along the value chain, including limited access to quality planting materials such as seeds and fertilizers, insufficient storage and postharvest handling facilities, fluctuating market prices, and unreliable market information systems. For women and youth, these challenges are further exacerbated by persistent social gaps in the agriculture sector. Digital tools can play a vital role in addressing these challenges by providing access to valuable agricultural information, weather forecasts, and best practices that help farmers make informed decisions and improve crop management. However, challenges persist in digital tool adoption within agricultural value chains in sub-Saharan Africa. This study assesses the impact of digital tool adoption and support on socioeconomic and agriculture-related outcomes in Kenya’s potato value chain. It piggybacks on an ongoing digital tool integration program, Business Development and Coaching (BDEC), conducted by the Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA), which targets agripreneurs in Farmer Service Centers (FSCs). By comparing a treatment group that receives this training with a control group continuing business as usual, the study evaluates the effects of agripreneurs’ adoption and expanded use of digital tools on farmers’ agriculture based livelihoods, income generation, and job creation metrics, with a focus on youth employment and gender disparities.

IFPRI’s research in fragile and conflict-affected settings

IFPRI’s research provides partners with support through a wide range of evidence and products: Decision-support tools spanning all phases of crisis and conflict: anticipating and preventing risks before they escalate, monitoring and responding during acute crises, and supporting long-term recovery and resilience. Context-relevant evidence on policies, programming, and interventions to address the unique challenges faced by FCAS—relevant for governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and other partners. Rapid-response policy support to address emerging challenges. Best-practice guidance for conflict-sensitive, gender-responsive policy designs.

Bridging Nigeria’s fertilizer supply-demand gap for agricultural transformation

Nigeria’s fertilizer sector exhibits a persistent disconnect between national supply and farm-level use. Despite rapid growth in domestic production and increased private-sector participation, fertilizer adoption among smallholder farmers remains among the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the key drivers of Nigeria’s fertilizer supply–demand imbalance and its implications for agricultural transformation. Using national statistics, market data, and policy reviews, it identifies persistent barriers – including high distribution costs, inconsistent government policies, weak extension systems, limited credit access, and poor product quality – that constrain effective fertilizer use. It also assesses how export-oriented incentives and underdeveloped domestic markets influence local availability and pricing. The findings show that expanding production alone is insufficient to achieve meaningful agricultural change. Coordinated market reforms, stronger regulatory enforcement, improved delivery mechanisms, and targeted support to smallholder farmers are needed to improve affordability, access, and agronomic efficiency. The paper concludes with policy recommendations aimed at better aligning the fertilizer sector with Nigeria’s long-term goals for productivity growth and food system resilience.

The impact of genetically modified cowpea on yields, postharvest losses, and profitability in Nigeria: Findings from a cluster randomized controlled trial

We assess the impacts of a genetically modified pod borer-resistant (PBR) cowpea variety in Nigeria through a cluster randomized controlled trial conducted in two major cowpea-cultivating states. Our design allows us to examine the impacts of PBR cowpea with and without a package of complementary inputs (fertilizer and insecticides) and in comparison to farmers who received only a conventional improved cowpea variety. Results indicate that farmers who received and planted PBR cowpea experienced significant increases in yield (21 percent) and net margins (49 percent) compared to those growing the conventional variety, with larger gains observed among those provided with the inputs package. Analysis of heterogeneous effects indicates substantial variation in outcomes based on baseline characteristics such as household size, landholding, pest control practices, and wealth. Estimation of group average treatment effects and classification analysis using a causal machine learning approach identify plot size, pesticide use, and assets as key drivers of impact heterogeneity. Findings highlight the need for targeted dissemination strategies to realize the sizable benefits of PBR cowpea for small-scale, resource-constrained farmers.

The landscape of youth engagement in labor markets in Africa: Are youth driving structural transformation?

This paper assesses the landscape and evolution of youth engagement in labor markets in Africa, focusing on three important countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria—which together account for 40 percent of Africa’s youth population. We also examine whether Africa’s youth are driving structural transformation. To do so, we combine nationally representative data and surveys spanning more than two decades (from the 1990s to the 2020s). We situate the analysis within the region’s pressing youth unemployment challenge, where annual labor-force entrants surpass job creation. Our findings show that, despite substantial heterogeneities across countries, largely due to sectoral composition of economies, youth remain engaged in agriculture almost as much as adults. While labor continues to gradually shift out of agriculture, it has moved overwhelmingly into services rather than industry, reinforcing the unique pattern of structural transformation in Africa. More importantly, exit rates from agriculture are similar for youth and adults, except in Ethiopia, where youth are leaving agriculture at slightly higher rates than adults. In Ethiopia and Kenya, the entry rate into services is higher among young women, while entry into industry is higher among young men, suggesting distributional and equity implications of Africa’s ongoing structural transformation. These findings offer important insights and challenge simplistic views that youth are leaving agriculture in “droves” as well as the sometimes-embroidered perceptions of their role in that transformation. We discuss the implications of these findings for sustaining inclusive employment opportunities and argue that agriculture should remain central to job creation efforts in Africa.

The role of fertilizer trade in enhancing food security in Africa

A comprehensive approach to understanding the relationship between food security and trade must include the trade and accessibility of agricultural inputs. Fertilizers (organic and mineral) are crucial for delivering essential nutrients to crops, significantly boosting agricultural productivity and, in turn, enhancing food security. Increased fertilizer use can help make food more available and affordable by generating higher crop yields, lowering farmers’ production costs, and increasing supply. In addition, by achieving higher crop yields on the same land area, fertilizers can reduce the need to expand agricultural land, helping to prevent deforestation.

Intra-African agricultural trade and implications for domestic food security

The 21st century ushered in a renewed sense of optimism regarding Africa’s economic prospects. With a rapidly growing population, a burgeoning consumer market, and vast agricultural potential, the continent stands at a pivotal juncture. Central to this narrative of transformation is the agenda for regional integration, championed by the African Union’s landmark African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). While the AfCFTA does not have a standalone protocol dedicated solely to agriculture or food security, these sectors are encompassed within the Protocol on Trade in Goods, which addresses tariff concessions, nontariff barriers, and rules of origin applicable to agricultural products. Officially operationalized in 2021, the AfCFTA aims to create a single market for goods and services, facilitating the free movement of businesspersons and investments, and ultimately paving the way for a continental customs union.1 Its primary objective is to significantly boost intra-African trade, which has historically languished at dismally low levels. Compared to Europe and North America, where intraregional trade represents a significant share of overall commerce, Africa’s internal level of trade remains markedly lower (UNCTAD 2021). This discrepancy is not merely a trade statistic; it reflects deep-seated structural issues with profound implications for one of the continent’s most pressing challenges: food security.

Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor 2025

The 2025 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor (AATM) investigates critical topics related to Africa’s trade in agricultural products. As in previous editions of the report, we developed a database that corrects discrepancies in official trade flow values, as reported by importing and exporting countries; this database serves as the basis for analyzing Africa’s international, domestic, and regional trade. Following the 2024 report’s examination of the nexus between climate change and the environment, this year’s report focuses on food security and its linkage with global and intra-African trade.

The rice value chain in Africa

Rice is both a strategic commodity and a staple food in most African countries. It is the second most important source of dietary energy in the region, after maize, providing 9 percent of human calorie intake (van Oort 2023). In many countries, particularly in West Africa, per capita consumption exceeds 100 kg/year (FAO 2024), putting Africa second only to Asia. Due to the combined effects of population growth, changing diets, urbanization, and income growth in Africa, rice demand is now growing at 6 percent annually, faster than any other staple food (AfricaRice, n.d.), and projected to increase significantly in the next decade. By 2034, Africa is likely to be the largest importing region globally, despite increasing intraregional trade (FAO 2025).

Africa in global agricultural trade and food security: Recent trends

Africa’s agricultural trade was largely shaped by the colonial division of the continent in the 19th century, when the agriculture of several African regions was transformed into monocrop, export-oriented sectors that catered to the growing European demand for food, luxury products such as chocolate, and manufacturing inputs such as rubber and cotton (Bjornlund et al. 2020; Akyeampong 2017). This shift occurred at the expense of the domestic agricultural diversity and intra-African trade complementarity that had long ensured food security, and continued even after African countries gained their independence. Several African governments pursued agricultural policies similar to those of colonial times and focused on the export of a few crops to generate sufficient revenue to fund their industrialization and development plans. Between 1966 and 1973, for instance, nearly one-half of sub-Saharan African governments depended on the export of a single commodity to secure 50 percent of their export revenues (Bjornlund et al. 2020). This concentration had two negative repercussions on food security: (1) increased vulnerability to fluctuations in global commodity prices; and (2) decreased local and traditional food production, which threatened the availability of food for the growing African population.

Reforming agrifood system subsidies: Synthesis of political economy findings from fish, fertilizer, and animal inputs

Subsidies are price distortions aimed at shifting incentives to generate a desired behavioral response. Agrifood system input subsidies aim to reduce the cost of components—such as fertilizer, fuel, animal feeds, vessels, and machinery—needed by farmers, fisherfolk, ranchers, and pastoralists to improve productivity. Such subsidies may occur in multiple forms, including vouchers that enable beneficiaries to receive a discount, a direct reduction in input retail prices borne by the state or distributors, or through tax reductions and exemptions. The cost of agricultural subsidies, inclusive of fertilizer subsidies, are estimated at USD 635 billion a year (Damania et al. 2023) while fisheries subsidies, including for fuel, fisheries management, and non-fuel tax exemptions, are estimated to total approximately USD 35 billion (Sumaila et al. 2019). While they can support poorer constituencies in the agrifood system who could not otherwise afford such inputs, subsidies can be prone to corruption and leakage to elites, generate negative environmental externalities, and place undue pressure on public sector finances (Amaglobeli, Benson, and Mogues 2024; Damania et al. 2023; Jayne et al. 2018). In addition, they can generate distributional conflicts among different constituencies—both within countries and across countries—and these conflicts can undermine program implementation as well as hinder needed reforms.

Public expenditure on agriculture, youth out-migration, and engagement in agriculture? Evidence from Nigeria

Theoretical models posit that migration decisions are driven by differences in economic opportunities across locations, including across rural and urban areas, which implies that increased rural investment can curb rural-urban migration and encourage engagement in agriculture. However, direct empirical evidence of this remains scant, especially on youth migration in Africa. We fill this knowledge gap by examining the effect of temporal changes in public expenditures for the agriculture sector (PEA) on rural youth’s migration and engagement in rural economies in Nigeria. We combine unique subnational data that capture PEA’s spatiotemporal variations and individual level youth data and estimate two-way fixed effects models. We find that a 1 percentage point increase (equivalent to a 25 percent increase) in the share of PEA, is associated with up to 0.9 percentage points reduction in youth’s out-migration. Conversely, an increase in PEA leads to increased youth engagement in farm activities. Our results suggest that public investments in rural economies can mitigate youth out-migration from rural areas. These results have important implications for informing youth and migration policies, especially in the context of Africa, often characterized by its youth bulge and the exodus of youth from rural areas because of perceived lack of economic opportunities.

Bridging the gap: How human-centered design can help unlock bottlenecks in the diffusion of small-scale irrigation in Nigeria

Ample evidence shows that small-scale irrigation (SSI) has positive impacts on agricultural productivity, poverty reduction, climate resilience and household food security, nutrition. Despite this, adoption of SSI has remained low in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, where previous research suggests potential for adoption is largest. Factors such as high cost of technologies, farmers’ risk behavior, lack of incentives, and lack of access to finance and capacity gaps have often been noted as key constraints limiting the adoption/scaling of SSI among smallholders. However, in an environment with low overall levels of use, it is important to not only focus on the challenges experienced by smallholder farmers, but also on those of key intermediary actors—specifically government, irrigation equipment distributors, and finance institutions—that are critical for a supportive enabling environment of SSI technology diffusion. To understand the constraints these groups encounter and propose innovative policy, financial, and supply chain solutions, we conducted a series of human-centered design (HCD) workshops in three locations in Nigeria. Key solutions proposed during nine workshops include the need for cross-sector coordination and policy harmonization, improved data and digital systems and platforms, customized financial products and risk-sharing options for SSI, capacity-sharing for extension services, and specific strategies to support women farmers so that they benefit equally.

Climate risks and agricultural changes in conflict-affected Myanmar

Climate change and conflict are increasingly shaping livelihoods in Myanmar, with agricultural households among the most directly affected. Yet, empirical evidence on how these stressors affect farmers’ adaptation strategies and agricultural assets remains limited. We draw on unique largescale primary surveys: Over a three-year period, we conducted bi-annual surveys with nearly 5,000 farmers, collecting data on exposure to conflict, natural risks, climate change perceptions, agricultural adaptation, and agricultural land valuation.

Conflict and agricultural inputs: Impacts on maize yields in Nigeria

While standard agronomic recommendations advocate for increased application of inorganic fertilizer to boost maize yields across sub-Saharan Africa, there is limited understanding of how violent conflict influences smallholder farmers’ fertilizer demand, yield responses, and the overall profitability of fertilizer use. This study addresses this gap by analyzing how exposure to conflict affects input use decisions and the economic returns to fertilizer among maize farmers in Nigeria. Using detailed household-level data and spatially referenced conflict events, we estimate maize yield response functions with respect to nitrogen application and assess the profitability of fertilizer under varying levels of conflict exposure. Our findings reveal three key results. First, the marginal physical product (MPP) of nitrogen is low across the study sample, indicating limited agronomic responsiveness. Second, conflict exposure significantly reduces the likelihood and intensity of fertilizer use, suggesting that insecurity constrains both input access and willingness to invest. Third, conflict lowers the MPP of nitrogen even further, thereby reducing the marginal value-cost ratio (MVCR) and undermining the profitability of fertilizer use. These results highlight the importance of considering conflict as a key external factor that distorts input-output relationships in agricultural production. Insecurity not only affects access to inputs through higher prices and disrupted supply chains, but also alters expected returns, making fertilizer investments less attractive for risk-averse farmers. Recognizing the effects of conflict on fertilizer use and yield response is essential for designing more effective input subsidy programs, targeting strategies, and resilience-building interventions in fragile agricultural systems.

Food systems in conflict-prone and climate-affected areas of Northern Nigeria: Humanitarian and development challenges

Protracted conflict and climate shocks have profoundly disrupted food systems in northern Nigeria, yet little empirical evidence exists on how these shocks shape the functioning of the region’s food system (production, transportation, value addition, and trade). This study addresses this evidence gap by combining GIS-based mapping, cost structure analysis, and investment opportunities in food production, transportation, processing, and trade in key staple commodities across conflict-prone and climate-affected areas of northern Nigeria and connected market hubs. The analysis quantifies cost structures for key food supply chain actors, identifies systemic food system inefficiencies driven by conflict and climate factors, and examines how these factors undermine both commercial and humanitarian food flows. By integrating commodity-specific diagnostics with stakeholder perspectives, the study offers an evidence-based rationale for prioritizing interventions in conflict contexts. Two investment cases—on-farm storage and localized wheat milling—illustrate how targeted actions can reduce losses, enhance resilience, and create co-benefits for humanitarian operations and market recovery. By combining food-flow maps and cost structures for multiple actors along the food supply chain in a high-risk environment, and by demonstrating simplified approaches to linking empirical diagnostics with practical investment strategies, the study’s findings contribute to the literature on the functioning of food systems in conflict-prone and climate-affected contexts. In addition, the findings provide evidence to support policy changes, interventions, and investment decisions aimed at transforming food systems and addressing structural failures, while enhancing the efficacy of short-term humanitarian interventions. They also address the underlying causes of chronic food insecurity and support economic recovery in the region.

Can digital cash transfers serve those in active conflict? Evidence from a randomized intervention in Sudan

This paper evaluates the impact of digital transfers on the well-being of households grappling with active conflict in Sudan. Considering the case of Sudan, where active conflict and funding gaps continue to hamper the delivery of humanitarian services, we aim to address the following questions: (i) Can digital cash transfers improve food and nutrition security outcomes of beneficiaries in conflict-affected settings?; (ii) Can digital transfers to an other-wise inaccessible population improve subjective well-being, mental health, and stress in the face of recurrent conflicts?; and (iii) Who benefits more from digital transfers, and do the impacts of digital transfers vary depending on the size of transfers or socioeconomic characteristics of households? To address these questions, we design a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving digital transfers of different sizes to randomly selected urban households in Sudan. Digital transfers reached nearly all targeted beneficiaries, with about a quarter of households receiving them through their friends and relatives and hence incurring some transaction fees. Overall, digital transfers mitigated deterioration in food insecurity (by 7-8 percentage points) and improved subjective well-being and mental health. Interestingly, we find that the digital transfers are more beneficial (impactful) for those grappling with active conflict. Digital transfers also appear to be less effective for poorer households and households of a larger size. These findings highlight the potential of digital transfers to support those grappling with armed conflict.

The changing demographics in Nigeria’s food systems and implications for future youth engagement

Food systems (FS) are critically important for youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa. FS must grow rapidly to guarantee food and nutrition security for growing populations, provide the quantity and quality of food demanded by increased urbanization and income, and to complement technological changes in other sectors. Expansion of nonfarm components of FS also reinforces efforts to transition out of agriculture. The impact of these factors, their inevitability and amenability to policy interventions, and the extent of FS transformation needed differ across countries. Future FS also face several emerging challenges. Employment and job creation are among the areas significantly affected by FS transformation. Demographic changes that accompany expanding FS employment are also critical for gender equity and youth inclusion. The extent, speed, and complementarity of the FS transformation and increased employment also vary across countries. However, few systems are currently in place to monitor the extent of FS transformation or its interactions with other aspects of the economy.

This study explores the evolution of employment in Nigeria’s FS over the past two decades, focusing on youth and gender inclusion amid broader demographic, economic, and policy shifts. As Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria is experiencing all the factors that typically shape FS and labor markets. With the working-age population growing by nearly 90 percent between 2000 and 2023 and youth unemployment remaining high, the agrifood system (AFS) presents both a challenge and an opportunity for inclusive economic transformation.

The paper begins by situating FS as critical to Nigeria’s economy, highlighting their contributions to GDP and employment. Using national living standards survey data, it examines structural changes in employment, particularly the shift away from on-farm agricultural work toward nonfarm segments such as food processing, trade, and services. Between 2003 and 2022, agriculture’s share in total employment fell from 58 percent to 35 percent, while nonfarm AFS employment grew from 12 percent to 33 percent. Women and youth have been central to this shift, with women’s participation in nonfarm AFS increasing by 190 percent and youth participation growing by over 300 percent—growth was especially faster in trade and food manufacturing.

The analysis links these labor trends to key drivers such as economic growth, policy reforms, urbanization, and conflict. While Nigeria’s economy nearly tripled between 2000 and 2023 and poverty declined, economic gains have been uneven and fragile, particularly in the northern regions affected by insecurity. Government efforts—including the Agricultural Promotion Policy (2016-2020), National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (2022-2027), and the creation of the Presidential Food Systems Coordinating Unit (2023)—signal a growing shift toward an FS approach in policy thinking. However, gaps in institutional coordination, inadequate investment in enabling infrastructure, and limited inclusion of vulnerable groups constrain the impact of these reforms.

The study concludes that Nigeria’s AFS holds potential for inclusive growth and employment generation. However, realizing this potential requires sustaining the policy focus from narrow agricultural productivity to a broader FS strategy that centers on employment quality, gender equity, youth entrepreneurship, and institutional alignment. Without such a transformation, Nigeria risks even more youth unemployment and discontent, thus missing the demographic dividend. But with targeted investments in skills, infrastructure, and policy coherence, the AFS can serve as a powerful lever for sustainable development and economic opportunity.

Minimum tillage

Soil tillage represents a key agricultural management practice for crop production, serving multiple purposes. Primarily, it is used to control weeds and increase the soil organic matter mineralization rates, making nutrients more available to plants. Other potential benefits are improved soil aeration and water filtration. However, extensive use of tillage has proven unsustainable for soil maintenance and climate regulation. Deep plowing and other cultivation practices lead to soil degradation by increasing susceptibility to erosion [1], soil runoff [2], and by reducing microbial diversity and activity [3]. Minimum tillage and no-tillage (also known as zero-tillage) address these problems by reducing soil cultivation to a minimum, or entirely avoiding it, thus promoting less disruptive and potentially more sustainable agricultural management. Specifically, no-tillage eliminates traditional plowing practices with the use of direct seeding. To be effective, direct seeding is preceded by other land preparation practices, including chemical or mechanical weed control (e.g., slashing), removal of the previous crop residues, or cover crops to create a mulch layer. Crop residues are retained entirely, or at a suitable level to ensure complete soil coverage. Seeding is then done directly through the mulch layer or through narrow slits for seed placement. Occasionally, direct seeding can be done just before harvesting the previous crop. This practice, known as relay cropping, is used to reduce weed emergence during the period the land would otherwise lie fallow. Finally, direct seeding can be also done jointly with fertilizer and amendment applications. Minimum tillage is also promoted as a method to reduce air pollution, for instance in India, where previously farmers used to burn rice straw but now apply direct seeding on cut crop residues which are spread as mulch.

Overcoming budget constraints to healthy diets: Evidence from urban Tanzania

This study investigates the impact of temporary subsidies for nutrient-dense foods on the diets of low-income households in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Vouchers for eggs, milk, and unflavored yogurt were provided to randomly selected households over a three-month period. The subsidies significantly increased the consumption of the targeted healthy foods while discounts were offered. These effects persisted up to 9 months after the end of the subsidy period and were accompanied by a shift in preferences for the targeted foods. Consumption of unhealthy complements, specifically sugar added to yogurt and milk, increased during the subsidy period. Finally, while poorer households initially benefited most, sustained impacts were greater among wealthier households. In sum, the findings demonstrate that subsidies for healthy foods can lead to sustained improvements in diets, while suggesting a role for accompanying interventions such as nutrition education to maximize net health benefits, and pointing to the need for ongoing support to the most vulnerable.

The price of fragility: Shocks, food security, and lessons from Nigeria

Over the past decade Nigeria has experienced persistent food price inflation and substantial volatility, driven by domestic fragilities and global shocks. Three major shocks – the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), the Ukraine-Russia war (2022), and fuel subsidy reform (2023) – drove large and uneven price increases, with wheat prices rising by 63.3% and brown sorghum by 83.9%. Volatility was highest for wheat flour and groundnuts, with coefficients of variation of 0.53 and 0.51, reflecting Nigeria’s dependence on imports and sensitivity to external price shocks. This study utilizes high-frequency retail price data for eight staple food commodities across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory to analyze spatial and temporal food price dynamics, volatility patterns, and their welfare implications. To quantify welfare impacts, we use the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Food Price Simulator. Results show a 9.1 percentage point increase in food poverty (from 42.9% to 52.0%) and an 11.6-point rise in undernourishment (from 40.0% to 51.6%). Lower-income households reduced food expenditures by 12.7%, compared to 9.5% for higher-income groups, reflecting disproportionate exposure to food inflation. Northern zones had relatively lower prices for traditional grains due to more favorable agroecological conditions, while southern regions faced higher prices due to higher transport costs and limited local production. Conflict-affected northeastern states exhibited the highest volatility and food insecurity. We propose a three-pronged policy agenda: short-term safety nets and strategic reserves, medium-term reforms to strengthen market connectivity through improved transport and storage infrastructure, and long-term investments in climate-resilient, inclusive food systems.

Policy implementation is operational

This paper argues that policy implementation must be understood as a fundamentally operational process, not merely the execution of policy intent. It proposes a framework centered on four core dimensions of implementation: activation cost, option value, kinetics, and negotiation. Drawing on the case of the World Food Programme’s 2008 Cash and Voucher Policy, the paper shows that implementing a policy requires building physical and institutional systems, creating delivery capacity, managing uncertainty, and preserving strategic flexibility. The case is not about cash transfers as such, but about what it took—organizationally, technically, and politically—for the World Food Programme to move from a policy decision to sustained, system wide operational capability and delivery. The paper concludes that successful policy implementation depends on treating implementation itself as the central frontier of policy action—requiring investment, learning, negotiation, and time. Several implications emerge for researchers, practitioners, and investors seeking to close the gap between policy on paper and policy in action.

Signaling, screening, or sunk costs? Experimental evidence on how prices affect agricultural technology adoption in East Africa

Free samples are a widely used strategy to introduce new products or technologies, offering prospective users the opportunity to gain firsthand experience and potentially facilitate diffusion through social networks. However, concerns remain that giving away products for free may reduce their perceived value, increasing the risk that recipients will underutilize, repurpose, or resell the product rather than use it for its intended purpose. We explore three mechanisms through which charging a positive price may increase uptake, intended use and subsequent adoption of a new technology: (1) a signaling effect, where a positive price conveys higher product quality; (2) a screening effect, whereby payment deters users who do not value the product and targets those more likely to use it; and (3) a sunk cost effect, where paying a positive price induces a psychological commitment to use. We test how these pricing mechanisms shape uptake, use, and subsequent adoption of recently released seed varieties of staple food crops, drawing on a field experiment with smallholder farmers in Uganda and Ethiopia. We find that willingness to pay is a reliable predictor of subsequent use of seed trial packs, pointing to the value of modest prices for targeting likely adopters. At the same time, sunk cost effects are context specific and often negative, suggesting that charging farmers can reduce their ability or willingness to experiment. These findings carry important implications for how pricing strategies can be designed to promote technology adoption in low-income settings.

Healthy diets and the role of micro, small, and medium enterprises: Examining Ethiopia’s food environment

Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play an important role in the food environment in many low- and middle-income countries. But there is little systematic knowledge about the opportunities they have and constraints they face in trying to grow their businesses. To contribute to building this knowledge base, we draw upon linked household–enterprise surveys collected in two districts in Ethiopia in 2023. To learn about the constraints faced by these enterprises, we examine differences in organizational characteristics and business practices by outlet type, location, and manager gender and education among MSMEs that sell food. The results suggest that while there are clear availability constraints for specific types of foods, there are some strategies that could help MSMEs that retail healthy foods increase sales. If policymakers or others are interested in supporting sales through the food environment, interventions such as business training, service access, and capacity building on nutrition would best fit their needs.

Taking stock: Impacts of 50 years of policy research at IFPRI

As the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) marks its 50th anniversary, the Institute and its key stakeholders pause to take stock of what is known about its policy influence and impact over the years. What does the available evidence tell us about IFPRI’s achievements as an international research institution? Have its activities contributed to better policy and investment decisions by governments, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and others involved in the economic and social development of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)?

This report builds on a stocktaking paper published for IFPRI’s 40th anniversary, whose findings were generally favorable, by using more recent external sources of evidence to provide updated answers to these questions. It synthesizes bibliometric and download data, as well as a series of independently conducted impact assessment studies of many of IFPRI’s research programs and projects. This task has been facilitated by the availability of 40 such evaluations, commissioned by IFPRI, the CGIAR Research Programs on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health and on Policies, Institutions, and Markets, or project donors. Additionally, other agencies commissioned several evaluations of specific country and regional policies that IFPRI helped influence. This wealth of independent assessments is rare for a policy research institution. Moreover, IFPRI’s commissioning or co-commissioning of 36 impact assessments over 25 years demonstrates a serious commitment to an impact evaluation culture and a willingness to learn from its experiences.

Investing in innovative food systems solutions in challenging contexts

Humanitarian agencies are in a race against time to save lives in contexts where economies have collapsed as hunger is aggravated by conflicts and extreme weather, among other factors. Take Nigeria, for example. Across the country lives and livelihoods are being shattered by conflict and climate shocks – once a breadbasket, the northern regions now rely heavily on humanitarian food assistance. The numbers speak for themselves: 30.6 million people are food insecure – 10 million people in three northern states; 17 million children are malnourished – the highest number in Africa, second highest globally after India. Farmers are cut off from their fields. Traders struggle to move goods through dangerous or impassable roads. Millions are displaced. And yet amid this fragility pockets of resilience are emerging in areas where conflict has subsided such that some farmers can return to their farms.

Graduating from Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme: What have we learned?

Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) – one of the largest social protection programs in Africa – has improved food security and strengthened recovery from shocks, yet it has achieved limited progress in raising incomes or diversifying livelihoods. In response, policymakers have layered graduation models onto the PSNP to promote sustainable self-reliance. This note synthesizes evaluation evidence from NGO- and government-led initiatives. NGO-led intensive, high-cost models increased assets and incomes in the short to medium term but rarely enabled households to exit the program. NGO-led lighter-touch approaches improved resilience but delivered minimal gains in overall well-being. Government-led efforts have faced persistent delivery challenges, including overstretched systems, weak credit access, and limited market linkages. Broader structural constraints, such as shrinking landholdings, scarce nonfarm opportunities, and recurrent drought and other shocks, further undermine the promise of graduation programming in this context. The review highlights six policy lessons on design, financing, and integration with broader development strategies to shape more effective approaches going forward.

Investing in innovative food systems solutions in challenging contexts: A food supply chain mapping and analysis

Humanitarian agencies are in a race against time to save lives in contexts where economies have collapsed as hunger is aggravated by conflicts and extreme weather, among other factors. Take Nigeria, for example. Across the country lives and livelihoods are being shattered by conflict and climate shocks – once a breadbasket, the northern regions now rely heavily on humanitarian food assistance. The numbers speak for themselves: 30.6 million people are food insecure – 10 million people in three northern states; 17 million children are malnourished – the highest number in Africa, second highest globally after India. Farmers are cut off from their fields. Traders struggle to move goods through dangerous or impassable roads. Millions are displaced. And yet amid this fragility pockets of resilience are emerging in areas where conflict has subsided such that some farmers can return to their farms.

Senegal assessment [of the PEDAL project]

For nearly three decades, Senegal has been recognized as a regional leader in advancing nutrition, reducing under-five stunting from 34 percent in 1992 to 19 percent in 2014 (Kampman et al. 2017), and further to 15.1 percent by 2023 (ANSD and ICF 2024). This progress has been underpinned by a multi-sectoral and decentralized approach, with local governments playing an increasingly central role in policy implementation. Large-scale food fortification (LSFF) has been a cornerstone of this agenda, with Senegal—alongside Nigeria—pioneering fortification standards in the 2000s for edible oil, wheat flour, and salt, and subsequently institutionalizing the approach through the 2006 Strategic Plan for the Fortification of Foods and two successive national fortification strategies, the most recent of which was launched in May 2025. Yet despite these achievements, Senegal now faces mounting fiscal pressures, shifting donor priori-ties, and persistent micronutrient challenges, all of which threaten to slow or reverse momentum around LSFF.

Are poor people conditionally cooperative? Contrasting evidence from a field-adapted contributions game

We study conditional cooperation using a field-adapted conditional contributions game in rural Mozambique, eliciting community members’ willingness to contribute to a new public program conditional on how many others contribute. While past studies suggest most people are conditional cooperators (contributing more as others do), most of our sample (57%) are undefined by standard classifications. Instead, our sample's most common types are largely absent from the literature: counter conditional cooperators (contributing less as others do) and v-shaped cooperators, both for monetary donations (30% and 19%) and volunteering (35% and 12%). Our findings motivate future research in both non-laboratory and low-income settings.

A good global investment for the United States: How investing in CGIAR makes America stronger, safer and more prosperous

This report documents how CGIAR investments have delivered substantial economic, security, and diplomatic benefits for the U.S. that far exceed financial contributions. By driving agricultural innovation and providing evidence-based insights, CGIAR has boosted U.S. farm productivity, expanded export markets, and made food more affordable for American consumers. It has also helped prevent billions of dollars in potential damage from pests and diseases that threaten U.S. food security and farm livelihoods. CGIAR promotes American leadership in agricultural innovation by supplying the majority of the genetic materials used in U.S. crop breeding and acting as a critical research partner for U.S. businesses and universities. CGIAR also makes America safer and stronger through its work on predicting crises, protecting food security, and on improving livelihoods as an alternative to migration.

Senegal at a crossroads: Prioritizing large-scale food fortification under financial uncertainty

Senegal long has been committed to large-scale food fortification (LSFF), especially for salt, edible oil, and wheat flour, bolstered by a set of multi-sectoral nutrition strategies and institutional coordinating mechanisms. Yet, due to recent macroeconomic pressures and reductions in donor funding, the country is at a crossroads, revealing key gaps in the sustainability of its current LSFF program even as new vehicles, such as rice and bouillon, are emerging on the fortification policy agenda. Based on interviews with over two dozen public, private, and civil society sector actors, we utilize the Political Economy Diagnostic of Large Scale Food Fortification (PEDAL) to highlight strengths of the Senegalese LSFF program and weaknesses that need to be prioritized. Among the latter include the stalled financing for the national fortification alliance, known as COSFAM, insufficient testing materials and laboratories, and rising costs of premix and raw materials. Several innovations were promoted by respondents to address some of these challenges, including either the decentralization or regionalization of laboratory capabilities, a central buying center for premixes, and online data platforms to track compliance. By reflecting on Senegal’s long experience and current challenges with scaling its fortification efforts, the analysis provides useful insights to countries with more nascent fortification programs about the prerequisites for ensuring LSFF sustainability.

The future of food demand: A global meta-analysis and projections of income and price elasticities

Understanding how food demand responds to household income and price changes is essential for anticipating global food needs and designing effective food policies. Yet existing elasticity estimates vary widely due to differences in data, estimation methods, and study settings. This study aims to assess how empirical choices influence elasticity values and examine theory-based predictions related to income
growth and inequality, urbanization, and demographic change. It provides the most comprehensive global systematic literature review and meta-analysis of income and price elasticities to date, compiling over 13,000 elasticity estimates from 215 peer-reviewed studies published between 1974 and 2022. We estimate two-level random effects meta-regressions and use the results to generate predicted elasticities for nine food groups by world region. While most data and methodological choices have little effect on price elasticity estimates, income elasticities are influenced by factors such as demand model type, use of conditional specifications, and the choice of expenditure measure. We find empirical support for Engel’s Law but only partial support for Bennett’s Law. Income elasticities are positively associated with urbanization, particularly in lower-income countries, and negatively associated with population aging. By projecting income elasticities through 2050 under alternative Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, we show that ignoring structural shifts in sociodemographics can yield meaningfully different estimates of future food demand.

Deploying high-frequency market data to estimate the cost of recommended diets: Recent trends in Rwanda

This study estimates the cost and affordability of recommended diets in Rwanda from April 2019 to December 2024 using high-frequency market price data. By deploying standardised methods for healthy diet costs to eSoko data (www.esoko.gov.rw), and local food based dietary guidelines, we calculate the monthly cost of recommended diets at the district level. Key findings reveal significant dietary cost fluctuations, with nominal costs increasing 67% between June 2022 and October 2023, coinciding directly with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The research also identifies affordability challenges; by mid-2023, and again in late 2024, where up to 70% of wage earners could not afford a recommended diet. Spatial variations were also evident, with diet costs differing between rural and urban areas, and across districts bordering different countries, with the highest dietary costs observed along the Democratic Republic of Congo border and the least expensive along the border of Tanzania. Utilizing Rwanda's eSoko data platform, the study demonstrates the value of high-frequency, spatially explicit data for understanding food system dynamics. The findings call for policy actions to consider dietary affordability, particularly for low-income groups, and suggest that Rwanda's data collection approach could serve as a benchmark for other countries.

IFPRI Making a difference

From the 2025 update: The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reaches millions of people through its mission to provide research-based policy solutions to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods; contribute to empowerment for all; and promote sustainable, climate-resilient food systems. Together with partners, IFPRI generates needed evidence for global, regional, and national policies, investments, programs, and institutions that contribute to poverty reduction and help ensure that all people have access to safe, sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably produced food. IFPRI is a Research Center of CGIAR, the world’s largest agricultural innovation network, and is the only CGIAR Center solely dedicated to food policy research. Through multisectoral research and engagement with stakeholders, IFPRI also informs effective policies, programs, investments, and institutions that contribute to productive livelihoods and sustainable, resilient, and equitable agriculture and food systems. The pathway from research to impact can be direct or, at times, more difficult to trace. IFPRI commissions independent, peer-reviewed assessments of our work and engages researchers in internally validating our activities. This brochure highlights some of these stories to show how IFPRI’s research is making a difference for people and the planet. With this work, we are advancing toward our vision of a sustainable world free from poverty and malnutrition.

From the 2021 update: IFPRI is reaching the lives of millions of people through its contribution to policies and programs that reduce poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. This looks at how a selection of IFPRI’s research is contributing to better outcomes for food and nutrition security and poverty reduction.

Digital literacy training to promote diffusion of digital agricultural tools to smallholder farmers: Evidence from a randomized intervention in Egypt

Despite growing enthusiasm about the potential of digital innovations to transform agrifood systems, adoption among smallholder farmers in Africa remains low and heterogeneous. While the proliferation of digital tools targeting smallholder farmers is encouraging, the vast majority remain at pilot stages, facing important demand and supply-side barriers to adoption. This paper evaluates alternative digital literacy interventions designed to address these demand-side barriers. Following a Training of Trainers (TOT) model, we designed and implemented a randomized control trial to test three variants of digital literacy training: standard classroom-based digital literacy training (T1), digital training complemented (preceded) by a video-based play (T2), digital training complemented (preceded) by a live community play (T3), and a control group (C). We find that all variants of digital training significantly increased the uptake and utilization of digital tools by smallholder farmers. Specifically, the standard digital training alone increased uptake by 20 percentage points and utilization by 26 percentage points. The interventions also significantly enhanced farmer trust in digital tools by 8–13 percentage points. Surprisingly, for some outcomes, the digital literacy training alone outperformed the combined approaches that incorporated edutainment nudges. We explore possible explanations, including group size effects and social influence dynamics during the plays. We also document heterogeneity in the impact of these interventions across farmers’ gender and age. Our findings offer insights for designing cost effective and scalable interventions to build digital capabilities and trust among smallholder farmers.

The gendered effects of rainfall on early childhood nutrition: Evidence from Papua New Guinea

Rainfall fluctuations can significantly reduce welfare for poor rural households in low- and middle-income countries dependent on rainfed agriculture for consumption, and in some contexts these adverse effects may be borne disproportionately by vulnerable household members, particularly children and girls. We present new evidence around the effects of rainfall fluctuations on child anthropometric status in Papua New Guinea, an understudied context characterized by some of the highest stunting rates in the world. We show that negative fluctuations in rainfall within a 12-month period are associated with reduced household consumption (driven by reduced consumption of own-produced food). Moreover, when these fluctuations are observed in the first year of a child’s life, they lead to a reduction in height forage and weight-for-age (though no shift in stunting), but this effect is observed only for girls: boys seem to be protected from the adverse effects of rainfall fluctuations experienced in infancy.

Gender attitudes in agriculture and positivity bias: A survey experiment in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

Extensive prior research has demonstrated that reducing gender discrimination enhances women’s empowerment, promotes more inclusive livelihoods, increases agricultural productivity, and improves other development outcomes. This study aims to contribute to documenting and informing the measurement of gender attitudes that relate directly to reaching, benefiting, and empowering women through agricultural innovations. By analyzing data from 8,051 survey respondents across study sites in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Rwanda, our findings emphasize both commonalities and differences in gender attitudes across different contexts. Furthermore, by including a survey-based experiment during data collection, we assess whether gender-attitude statements vary depending on whether they are presented in a positive frame (focusing on equality) or in a negative frame (focusing on inequality). On average, rural women and men respondents across all countries supported more than half of the gender-equality statements. Some gender-inequality attitudes persisted across the four countries but varied in magnitude and by location, age group, and specific statement or theme. Framing matters: respondents exposed to a positive framing supported 16 percent more gender-equality statements than those exposed to a negative framing. The study highlights two main implications. First, the findings indicate the importance of considering both restrictive
attitudes and those that reflect gender-equality opportunities as being in the vanguard. Accordingly, gender-focused interventions should adopt strategies that challenge normative
views of women as supporting rather than leading actors in agriculture and economic activities. Second, gender-attitude measures do not perfectly align with country-level gender-equality
indicators or with empowerment at the intrahousehold level. They therefore capture a distinct dimension and merit their own indicators.

2024 IFPRI A-133 (Uniform guide)

We have audited the financial statements of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which comprise the statements of financial position as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, the related statements of activities, functional expenses, changes in net assets and cash flows for the years then ended, and the related notes to the financial statements.

On the points of failure and entry in global food systems

This study develops a dual-framework for identifying points of failure (PFs) and points of entry (PEs) in global food systems. Building on Schneider et al. (2025), we extend their entry-point analysis by introducing PFs—nodes where systemic risk concentrates. Using dynamic systems modeling and directed network analysis of 50 indicators from the Food Systems Countdown Initiative, we derive PF and PE indexes based on structural metrics from the adjacency matrix. While empirically grounded in network topology, the model accommodates behavioral lags and policy sensitivity. Findings reveal that high-risk and high-leverage components often overlap, enabling more strategic and adaptive interventions. Designing interventions without understanding fragility would be akin to engineering a machine for acceleration while ignoring its weakest links.

Women’s leadership in agrifood governance: Unpacking gender attitudes and framing effects among policymakers with evidence from India and Nigeria

Women’s leadership in policy processes and formal institutions is a powerful pathway to gender equality and women’s empowerment at scale, yet relatively little is known about how key decision-makers who influence access to these positions perceive women’s leadership and how those perceptions can shift. This paper draws on original survey data from 407 elites from 274 agrifood organizations in India and Nigeria to examine elite gender attitudes, their responsiveness to framing interventions, and how these attitudes relate to support for policies promoting gender equality. Specifically, we ask: how do elites in agrifood governance perceive women’s leadership, and how responsive are these perceptions to a targeted framing intervention? We find that elites are substantially more supportive of women’s leadership than the general public in the same countries, yet male elites in particular still express strong endorsement of the idea that men make better leaders. Over half of male elites in our sample in both countries agree that men make better political leaders. A randomized framing experiment embedded in the survey shows that men’s attitudes toward women’s leadership are significantly influenced by how women’s capabilities are framed. Messages emphasizing women’s equal rights and capabilities reduce male elites’ support for gender-unequal statements compared to frames that ask individuals to reject the idea of male superiority. Female elites’ attitudes are more supportive overall and unaffected by framing. These findings suggest that gender messaging strategies should center on positive, equality-based frames, and that elite attitudes are critical to scaling women’s leadership in agrifood governance.

Ethical use of artificial intelligence in food, land and water systems research: A guide for equity and inclusion

This document aims to support CGIAR researchers and their partners by providing guidance, recommendations and resources on ethical considerations in using artificial intelligence (AI) in food, land and water systems (FLWS) research and practice with attention to equity and inclusion dimensions. This toolkit complements the GENDER Impact Platform Ethics and Standards Toolkit and aligns with CGIAR’s core ethical values outlined in the CGIAR Ethics Framework and the CGIAR Research Ethics Code.

In response to the rapid development and adoption of emerging AI technologies, the toolkit presents key issues and practical recommendations for researchers to consider across the research cycle, drawing on a comprehensive literature review and interviews with experts in AI ethics and social inclusion.

AI systems, as used in this context, refer to technologies that mimic aspects of human cognition and behavior—interpreting real-world data, generating predictions, and adapting through continuous learning (Benefo et al. 2022; Fu 2022; Manning et al. 2022). These systems are increasingly central to a suite of AI and agricultural technologies poised to transform FLWS research: not only in how we conduct research and generate insights, but also in how we define best practice for gender-related research and understand the downstream impacts of our research outputs.

Report on capacity strengthening training on best practices in outcome assessment, data interpretation and agricultural policy analysis

The Capacity Strengthening Workshop on Best Practices in Impact Evaluation, Data Interpretation, and Agricultural Policy Analysis (Phase 1) was conducted on April 22-23, 2025, aiming to build the foundational skills of fieldbased government officials in using agricultural data for informed decision-making. To strengthen its initiative on developing the Inclusive Agriculture Transformation (IAT) indicator, IFPRI has proposed a three-phased capacity-building program for key departmental staff. The objective is to enhance their understanding of the importance of data and its systematic maintenance. This initial phase focused on enhancing participants' understanding of various agricultural datasets and equipping them with basic skills in data interpretation and visualization. The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Principal Secretary to Government, Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment, Government of Odisha. The workshop was designed as part of a comprehensive capacity-building initiative to support the Inclusive Agriculture Transformation (IAT) framework, promoting evidence-based policy formulation and implementation.

External assessment of outcomes from IFPRI’s causal impact evaluation research 2012–2022

This report describes methods and findings from an assessment of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) causal impact evaluation (CIE) research over the period 2012–2022. CIE research is recognized within IFPRI as one of its primary means for contributing to informed policy and program decisions and thus forms a key part of one of its impact pathways. Appendix A contains the terms of reference (TOR) for the study. The main goal was to examine how the outputs of this research were used by stakeholders to make decisions. Many of the impact evaluations considered were conducted in partnership with donors and implementing organizations eager to know the effectiveness of their programs and interventions.

IFPRI at a glance

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) believes that by working together, the global community can sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI provides cutting-edge research and policy options on food and nutrition security to support these goals. For more than 40 years, IFPRI has collaborated with stakeholders and partners to contribute needed evidence for country- and region-led policies that help ensure that all people have access to safe, sufficient, nutritious, and sustainably grown food.

South Asia Nutrition Knowledge Initiative: Abstract digest August 2025

The sixth edition of the Abstract Digest underscores a complex and evolving nutrition landscape in South Asia, characterized by the persisting "triple burden" of malnutrition – undernutrition, overweight and obesity, and anemia. The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown to 2030 provides an overarching global and regional assessment of reproductive, maternal, child, and adolescent health and nutrition, with an emphasis on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), especially in South Asia.

Broadly, the featured articles examine the importance of preconception care and interventions to improve maternal and child health, alongside analyses of antenatal care service utilization and its associated factors. Studies also examine the prevalence and determinants of various forms of malnutrition, and assess the effectiveness and cost-benefit of nutrition programs and interventions, focusing on India and Bangladesh. A few articles focus on adolescent nutrition, highlighting the rising rates of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, as well as opportunities to improve maternal, infant, young child, and adolescent nutrition service delivery in Bangladesh, India, and beyond. Several articles delve into the influence of food environments on dietary quality and health in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, as well as the broader context of health systems and policy implementation in LMICs. Many of the studies in this edition call for future research on rigorous evaluations of scalable interventions in real-world settings.

Please scroll down to explore the abstracts of these studies, and information on relevant events. If you were forwarded this Abstract Digest, we invite you to subscribe!

Happy reading!

2024 IFPRI annual report

IFPRI’s 2024 annual report reviews highlights from our research to reduce hunger and malnutrition, including work in conflict-affected settings and on nutrition and diets, and our engagement around the world through our country and regional offices and global events.

Rural credit, food security, and resilience: An empirical evaluation from Kenya

In this paper, we examine the role of credit in enhancing rural households’ food security and resilience. In so doing, we consider resilience as a higher order capacity outcome, different from traditional development outcomes associated with households’ or individuals’ welfare. We evaluate the effectiveness of two types of agricultural production credit products, one a traditional credit and one that is linked to rainfall index insurance to protect borrowers against the adverse effects of drought. Based on a randomized controlled trial conducted in Machakos county, Kenya, we report both intent-to-treat effects as well as local average treatment effects to demonstrate the impacts of these credit products not only among borrowers, but the broader effects of expanding rural credit markets. We see generally low levels of food security resilience among our sampled households, but we find compelling evidence that credit and expanded credit markets more broadly had beneficial impacts on enhancing households’ food security and resilience. Despite the differences in the two credit products being evaluated, we do not find an appreciable difference in the effects of the two credit types, concluding that the expansion of affordable agricultural credit markets should be among the key policy tools for building resilience among rural smallholders.

GCAN partner workshop: Report on lessons and recommendations for policy engagement and capacity strengthening

The Gender, Climate Change and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN), led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), has been working to integrate gender, climate resilience, and nutrition considerations into policy, interventions, and research since 2016. Since 2023, the initiative has been working in five focal countries with support from the Gates Foundation.

Banking systems, capital markets, and financing the transformation of food systems: The role of macroeconomics, regulations, and incentives

Improving food systems requires significant expenditures and investments from both the public and private sector. In the case of public outlays, the decisions are taken by the government or by multilateral international organizations (with governments as their owners), while, obviously, private expenditures and investments depend on choices by the private sector. These private financial flows are guided by the decisions of consumers, producers, banking system institutions, and operators in capital markets. Public policy cannot dictate directly how those private actors act (for instance, governments cannot mandate that consumers must eat healthy diets), but it can influence those decisions through adequate macroeconomic, regulatory, and incentive frameworks. This discussion paper will focus briefly on some ideas about how those frameworks can reorient and expand current levels of funding towards food systems transformation, focusing particularly on banking systems and capital markets. First, it briefly analyzes the levels of financial flows in the banking system and capital markets. Then it looks at the role of macroeconomic policy in influencing the operations of food systems, followed by suggestions about other regulatory and incentive frameworks to create healthy, equitable, sustainable and climate-resilient food systems.

AGX Unconference in Nairobi 2025: Catalyzing collaboration and charting a course for Digital Agriculture

This report summarizes the outcomes of the AGX Unconference in Nairobi, Kenya, held on July 23–24, 2025, at the ILRI Conference Center. Co-hosted by CGIAR, the Gates Foundation, GIZ, DIASCA, and DevGlobal, this inaugural gathering convened more than 150 stakeholders—farmers, technologists, researchers, policymakers, and investors—to explore how Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can drive more efficient, inclusive, and resilient agricultural systems. Designed as a dynamic, participant-driven event, the AGX Unconference prioritized real-world challenges, co-creation, and cross-sector collaboration. Sessions were grounded in farmer and implementer perspectives, highlighting barriers such as fragmented services, inaccessible advisory support, data governance gaps, and underutilized digital tools. In response, working groups and debates examined how DPI and AI can be responsibly leveraged to reduce duplication, improve interoperability, and empower small-scale producers. A central theme throughout the unconference was the need to design systems that are not only technically robust, but also locally relevant, equitable, and built in the public interest. From creating localized AI models to strengthening data infrastructure and inclusive digital ID systems, participants stressed the importance of aligning tools, policies, and partnerships around farmer-centered solutions. The event culminated in the AGX Inspire Challenge, where participants co-developed and pitched actionable, fundable ideas—one of which received seed funding to move forward. The energy and collaboration generated throughout the Unconference underscored the urgency and opportunity of collective action.

Development readiness

Why do some systems move while others stall—even when resources, plans, and intent appear similar? This paper introduces the concept of development readiness as one way to understand and address this question. Development readiness is defined as the capacity of a system to act—at the right time, at the right scale, and with purpose—whether in response to crises or in pursuit of development goals. It emerges when kinetic capacity (the ability to move people, goods, and services) aligns with negotiation capacity (the ability to coordinate, decide, and resolve), conditioned by activation costs (tangible and intangible obstacles) and option value (flexibility to act under uncertainty). A conceptual framework based on these four operational forces is set out and illustrated with real-world examples. A structured research agenda and strategy emerges, along with implications for investment and operations. The case illustrations demonstrate that the development readiness framework applies equally at national, sectoral, and organizational levels, with wide-ranging applications—from scaling innovations, accelerating service delivery, and strengthening value chains, to deepening climate resilience and enabling coordinated action in crisis-prone and institutionally fragmented settings.

What do we know about the future of gender equality in relation to food systems?

Foresight research has yet to fully explore gender equality as an outcome and a driver of food systems transformation.

Foresight analysis can assess which food systems investments and interventions are most effective at reducing gender inequalities and increasing women’s empowerment.

Addressing structural inequalities, promoting inclusivity in decision-making, and challenging patriarchal norms can enhance gender equality, social inclusion, and women’s empowerment in food systems transformation. Neglecting gender barriers when designing and disseminating food systems innovations may exacerbate gender inequalities and limit women’s empowerment.

Gender equality, women’s empowerment, and social inclusion also drive food systems transformation, leading to improved welfare outcomes for all. Foresight research should examine how closing gender gaps in livelihood opportunities, agricultural productivity, and resilience capacities can impact other food systems outcomes, such as poverty reduction, food security, and nutrition.

While data on gender inequalities in food systems and women’s empowerment have increased over the last 10 years, more sex-disaggregated data and impact evaluation studies are needed for rigorous foresight research on gender equality in agrifood systems.

What do we know about the future of energy and food systems?

The global energy transition currently in process involves increases in variable renewable energy generation and ongoing electrification of transport and industrial processes, leading to the possibility of absolute declines in the use of coal and petroleum before 2030.

This transition creates both opportunities and risks for agrifood systems.

Trade will be an important impact channel for net exporters and net importers of fossil fuels, with impacts spilling into the agrifood sector.

Improvements in energy technology, particularly solar generation, have broad applications with potentially large implications for agrifood systems.

Coping with crisis: Livelihood vulnerabilities and food insecurity in Sudan’s current conflict

Sudan’s conflict, reignited in April 2023, represents not just a military contest between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but a total systemic collapse that has engulfed governance, infrastructure, markets, and public services. This conflict did not arise in a vacuum. Sudan has long faced structural vulnerabilities including weak institutions, a fragile economy, and climate-related stressors such as erratic rainfall and land degradation. The war, however, accelerated these pre-existing fault lines into a full-blown crisis.

Key urban economies such as Khartoum have been devastated by airstrikes and sieges, while transport corridors and trade routes have been severed. Local governance structures in many regions have been displaced or dissolved, leaving civilians without recourse to basic services or protection. Simultaneously, the banking sector has fractured, disrupting remittances, cash transfers, and supply chains across the country. Insecurity has driven over 12.8 million people from their homes – 8.6 million internally and 3.9 million seeking refuge neighboring countries, as of May 2025 (UNHCR, 2025).

What do we know about the future of pulses in global and regional agrifood systems?

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for about 55 percent of global pulse production. Nearly one-half (48 percent) of global production occurs in 16 low- and lower-middle income countries in the drylands of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The gap between pulse demand and supply is increasing in South Asia.

Most recent foresight studies on pulses are focused on climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation.

Future foresight studies on specific pulse crops should target regions where these pulses are important in human diets.

Pulse trade should be promoted between countries that encompass the drylands of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Digital finance and agri-food value chains: Case studies from Nigeria

Nigeria’s agri-food sector is one of the largest and most complex in sub-Saharan Africa, encompassing diverse crops, regions, actors, and markets. With agriculture contributing approximately 24% to the national GDP and employing over 70% of the rural workforce (CBN, nd), the sector plays a central role in livelihoods, food security, and inclusive growth. Within this sector, agri-food value chains constitute the connective tissue that links smallholder farmers, processors, traders, input suppliers, and consumers, both within the domestic economy and across international markets.

Nigeria's agricultural output is predominantly driven by staple food crops such as maize, rice, and cassava, while export-oriented value chains like cocoa provide significant foreign exchange and economic diversification potential. These chains vary widely in terms of modernization, capital intensity, and integration into digital financial services. Staple crop chains are typically domestic-facing and labor-intensive, offering high employment shares and deep linkages with poverty alleviation. Export-oriented chains, although narrower in farmer reach, tend to offer higher margins, foreign earnings, and exposure to quality standards and global market dynamics.