Author: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: 0896295842 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
Few challenges facing the global community today match the scale of malnutrition, a condition that directly affects 1 in 3 people. Malnutrition manifests itself in many different ways: as poor child growth and development; as individuals who are skin and bone or prone to infection; as those who are carrying too much weight or whose blood contains too much sugar, salt, fat, or cholesterol; or those who are deficient in important vitamins or minerals. Malnutrition and diet are by far the biggest risk factors for the global burden of disease: every country is facing a serious public health challenge from malnutrition. The economic consequences represent losses of 11 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) every year in Africa and Asia, whereas preventing malnutrion delivers $16 in returns on investment for every $1 spent. The world’s countries have agreed on targets for nutrition, but despite some progress in recent years the world is off track to reach those targets. This third stocktaking of the state of the world’s nutrition points to ways to reverse this trend and end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
Author: Mara van den Bold Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 80
Book Description
Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider womens empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, womens empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of womens empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventionscash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programson womens empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on womens empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on womens empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventionsspecifically home gardening and dairy projectsshow mixed impacts on womens empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on womens empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on womens empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.
Author: Yosef, Sivan Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: 0896299902 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 8
Book Description
In recent years, the world has seen unprecedented attention and political commitment to addressing malnutrition. Milestones such as the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, the Lancet Maternal and Child Nutrition Series, and the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) have marked the rapid rise of nutrition on the global policy and research agenda. These developments reverse years of relative neglect for nutrition. Undernutrition is a global challenge with huge social and economic costs. It kills millions of young children annually, stunts growth, erodes child development, reduces the amount of schooling children attain, and increases the likelihood of their being poor as adults, if they survive. Stunting persists through a lifetime and beyond—underweight mothers are more likely to give birth to underweight children, perpetuating undernutrition across generations. Undernutrition reduces global gross domestic product by US$1.4–$2.1 trillion a year—the size of the total economy of Africa south of the Sahara.
Author: Diao, Xinshen, ed. Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: 0896293807 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 548
Book Description
Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.
Author: Agnes R. Quisumbing Publisher: Springer Science & Business ISBN: 940178616X Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 447
Book Description
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) produced a 2011 report on women in agriculture with a clear and urgent message: agriculture underperforms because half of all farmers—women—lack equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. This book builds on the report’s conclusions by providing, for a non-specialist audience, a compendium of what we know now about gender gaps in agriculture.
Author: Davis, Kristin E., ed. Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: 0896293750 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 380
Book Description
Agricultural transformation and development are critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural people in developing countries. Extension and advisory services play an important role in such transformation and can assist farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, and dealing with risks and disasters. Agricultural Extension: Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries provides a global overview of agricultural extension and advisory services, assesses and compares extension systems at the national and regional levels, examines the performance of extension approaches in a selected set of country cases, and shares lessons and policy insights. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, the book contributes to the literature on extension by applying a common and comprehensive framework — the “best-fit” approach — to assessments of extension systems, which allows for comparison across cases and geographies. Insights from the research support reforms — in governance, capacity, management, and advisory methods — to improve outcomes, enhance financial sustainability, and achieve greater scale. Agricultural Extension should be a valuable resource for policymakers, extension practitioners, and others concerned with agricultural development.
Author: Amare, Mulubrhan Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 43
Book Description
This paper combines pre-pandemic face-to-face survey data with follow up phone surveys collected in April-May 2020 to quantify the overall and differential impacts of COVID-19 on household food security, labor market participation and local food prices in Nigeria. We exploit spatial variation in exposure to COVID-19 related infections and lockdown measures along with temporal differences in our outcomes of interest using a difference-in-difference approach. We find that those households exposed to higher COVID-19 cases or mobility lockdowns experience a significant increase in measures of food insecurity. Examining possible transmission channels for this effect, we find that COVID-19 significantly reduces labor market participation and increases food prices. We find that impacts differ by economic activities and households. For instance, lockdown measures increased households' experience of food insecurity by 12 percentage points and reduced the probability of participation in non-farm business activities by 13 percentage points. These lockdown measures have smaller impacts on wage-related activities and farming activities. In terms of food security, households relying on non-farm businesses, poorer households, those with school-aged children, and those living in remote and conflicted-affected zones have experienced relatively larger deteriorations in food insecurity. These findings can help inform immediate and medium-term policy responses, including social protection policies aiming at ameliorating the impacts of the pandemic, as well as guide targeting strategies of governments and international donor agencies by identifying the most impacted sub-populations.
Author: Norton, George W. Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst ISBN: Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 50
Book Description
Well-funded and well-staffed agricultural research systems with efficient allocation of research resources are important for improving agricultural productivity and for meeting other agricultural development goals. Assessing research system funding adequacy and staffing, as compared to alternative investments, and allocating research resources within systems require data on agricultural research investments. The Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative at IFPRI is the most comprehensive source of agricultural research statistics for low- and middle-income countries. Since 2001, building on an earlier International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) effort, ASTI has developed a network of institutional collaborators at national and regional levels who assist in implementing surveys to collect agricultural research investment data in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. ASTI compiles, processes, and publicizes the data at national, regional, and global levels. It has published a broad set of country briefs, notes, and regional synthesis reports that have been cited in national and international policy documents. The primary outputs from ASTI are the country data sets, which are now published on the website, http://www.asti.cgiar.org/. Data are published for 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 countries in South Asia, 7 countries in East and Southeast Asia, 5 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and 1 country in the Pacific. The ASTI websites Data Tool aids in accessing the data. The websites readers can click on a world map to find for individual countries data on five types of research expenditure variables (in US$ and PPPs), five types of research staff variables, and five research share variables. Readers can then plot variables against each other in a graph or export and download data in Excel files. Data can also be uploaded using a survey form available in three languages. Since 2004, ASTI has produced 91 country-level publications: 50 country briefs, notes, and reports and 16 fact sheets on gender-disaggregated capacity indicators for Sub-Saharan Africa; 13 briefs and reports for the Asia-Pacific region, 5 for the Middle East and North Africa, and 7 for Latin America and the Caribbean. ASTI researchers themselves have conducted relatively few in-depth analyses using the data, but they have teamed with other researchers on papers and presentations and other researchers have made significant use of ASTI data.
Author: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Author: Lisa C. Smith
Author: Mara van den Bold
Author: Yosef, Sivan
Author: Diao, Xinshen, ed.
Author: Agnes R. Quisumbing
Author: International Food Policy Research Institute
Author: Davis, Kristin E., ed.
Author: Amare, Mulubrhan
Author: Norton, George W.