Role of IFPRI in India: The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is an international research center focused on agriculture and food systems that provides research-based policy solutions to reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition throughout low- and middle-income countries in environmentally sustainable ways. For nearly 50 years, IFPRI has worked with policymakers, academics, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, development practitioners, and others to carry out research, capacity strengthening, and policy communications on food systems, economic development, and poverty reduction.
IFPRI is a Research Center of CGIAR, the world’s largest international agricultural research network, and the only CGIAR center solely dedicated to food policy research. IFPRI’s research is supported by more than 185 donors, and through a multi donor trust fund for the CGIAR, which is funded by national governments, multilateral funding and development agencies, and private foundations.
IFPRI’s researchers work on a range of disciplines and topics, including agricultural economics, political economy, rural poverty and transformation, social protection, women’s empowerment, food environments, digital innovations and practices, and policy analysis and modeling. The Institute collaborates with hundreds of local, regional, and national partners along the research and policy life cycle.
IFPRI’s regional programs for Africa
IFPRI’s regional programs for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia, as well as its country-level programs, respond to national demands for food policy research, strengthen local capacities for research and policy analysis, and support country-led development. The Institute has around 600 employees from around the world working in over 80 countries, with more than half of its researchers based in low- and middle-income countries. In Africa, IFPRI maintains a regional office in Senegal and country programs in Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan. IFRI’s South Asia office is based in India, with country offices in Bangladesh, China, and Myanmar. The Institute also operates a country office in Papua New Guinea.
IFPRI is recognized as a leader in global development research worldwide. The Institute is ranked highly among all agricultural economics departments worldwide, in the field of African economics, and in development economics, and is listed in the top 1% of all institutions registered in Research Papers in Economics (RePEc).
Role of IFPRI in India
Independent, peer-reviewed assessments of IFPRI’s impact show that the Institute’s research work has benefited 270 million people worldwide, and just a few of its efforts—including work on Mexico’s Progresa social protection program, the liberalization of rice markets in Viet Nam, and Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program, among others—have been estimated to lead to more than US$1 billion in economic returns and environmental benefits.[16] The Institute’s researchers and their activities have been recognized by several prestigious organizations, including the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and the International Association of Agricultural Economists.
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The Institute publishes and shares its research and analysis through a range of publications, including peer-reviewed articles, books, briefs, and reports, blogs, and interactives, and different events, including conferences and seminars, among other activities. IFPRI regularly contributes to major international meetings and events, such as the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) in 2023 in Dubai, where its researchers organized and participated in multiple events focusing on the nexus between climate change and food security and nutrition, social equity, gender equality, and resilience, among other topics.
Products and publications
IFPRI’s policy and research products are targeted to multiple audiences, including policymakers, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations, donors, advisors, and the media. IFPRI publications are open access.
IFPRI’s publications and outputs include books, reports, newsletters, briefs, fact sheets, blogs, and photo essays. The Institute is also involved in the collection of primary data and the compilation and processing of secondary data. IFPRI researchers publish extensively in top journals in the fields of agricultural economics, development, food policy, nutrition, and more.
Global Food Policy Report is IFPRI
The Global Food Policy Report is IFPRI’s flagship publication. To meet the needs of policymakers and researchers focused on food security and nutrition, this annual report presents an overview of a salient topic in the field and discusses relevant challenges and solutions in major world regions.
In recent years, IFPRI’s Global Food Policy Report has focused on pressing issues facing the world’s food systems, including the role of sustainable healthy diets in human and planetary well-being, approaches to building resilience to food crises, food system actions to increase adaptation and resilience to climate change, and the need for food systems transformation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
IFPRI’s researchers work across a range of disciplines and with a wide array of local and national partners in developing countries, as well as research, scaling, advocacy, and funding partners, to provide rigorous, policy-relevant evidence and recommendations to policymakers, donors, the private sector, and civil society. Our regional and country programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America respond to national demand for holistic food policy research and strengthen local research and policy analysis capacity.
By informing better policy decisions, agenda setting, and investments in sustainable equitable food systems, IFPRI’s research has contributed to policies and programs that benefit millions around the world.
IFPRI is a nonprofit corporation incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1975. It is classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a charitable organization under Section 501(c)(3). It is not a branch, division, or agency of the United States government. In 1982, IFPRI was granted recognition as an international organization solely for U.S. tax and immigration purposes.
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Conclusion
Evaluations from the early 2000s and late 1990s praise the Institute’s quality and quantity of work but critique its priorities in selecting research topics and its efforts to undertake capacity-strengthening and other outreach activities. Critics have also questioned whether IFPRI focused too much on conducting world supply-demand projections and following technical pursuits to the detriment of doing analyses of applied policies, political economy, and the impacts of agricultural subsidies and incentives for investment in agricultural research and development.
IFPRI and CGIAR have also been criticized for receiving funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with critics fearing that the Foundation’s influence will lead to the promotion of an agribusiness agenda that ignores broader social and economic factors.
Critics argue that several efforts to improve collaboration, effectiveness, and efficiency among the CGIAR Research Centers have been too slow or inadequate, and some critiques have pointed to a perceived lack of clear research priorities, buy-in from the Global South, and diversity in leadership, as well as an overly bureaucratic, “business-as-usual” approach to restructuring.
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