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Innovation capacity, food system development, and the size of the agricultural research system
No full textIntroduction: This article contributes to a better understanding of the context in which agricultural R&D investment takes place in low- and middle-income countries, and how innovation capacity, the development of the food system, and the size of the research system affect R&D investment.
Methods: A three-step methodology is proposed where the first step consists of creating an index of the development of a food system using indicators of the technological transformation of the food supply chain and the changes in diets on the demand side. The second step involves developing a measure of innovation capacity at the country level, while the final step consists of systematic comparisons of countries with large and small agricultural research systems to find the relationship between the size of a country's research system, the level of development of its food system, and its overall capacity to innovate.
Results: The results reveal that there is a high and positive correlation between innovation capacity and the development of the food system and a negative correlation between these two indicators and the size of the agricultural research system in low- and middle-income countries. The lower overall quality and level of development of the education and scientific research systems in countries with small agricultural research systems are important factors contributing to reduced innovation capacity. In addition, countries with small agricultural research systems are challenged with a comparatively poor innovation environment, poor market development, a weak private sector, a lack of competition in domestic markets, and a largely rural population with poor links to markets.
Discussion: The results of the analysis stress the need to increase the efficiency and productivity of agricultural research by implementing policies that get the most out of available resources while minimizing the negative effect of small-scale research operations. Increased coordination and integration of agricultural research at the regional and global level can help avoid duplication, enhance the efficiency of small-scale organizations, and make research more cost-effective and impactful.PRIFPRI3; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; ISI; ASTIForesight and Policy Modeling (FPM); Innovation Policy and Scaling (IPS); Transformation Strategie
Intellectual property rights regimes, their assets, and limitations
No full textThe role of intellectual property has become increasingly important in protecting creations of the mind and making day-to-day business decisions. Hence, if innovations are left unprotected, they can be exploited by competitors with capacity to commercialize them. This policy brief points out that lowand middle-income countries face intellectual property-related challenges compared to high-income countries due to inadequate intellectual property awareness, the high cost of processing patent applications, weak enforcement of intellectual property rights, and weak research and development capacity. Group of Seven (G7) countries are thus better positioned, as high-income countries, to lead globally on intellectual property enforcement, and leverage the flexibilities within the traderelated aspects of intellectual property to support and encourage future technologies in low- and middle-income countries. We propose that G7 countries support the creation of equity- and rights-based awareness on intellectual property rights, the improvement of mechanisms and systems for enforcement, and investment in research and development via building local support to reduce costs.Non-PRIFPRI5; DCA; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernanceInnovation Policy and Scaling (IPS); Transformation Strategie
Financing sustainable development: Shall we throw more money at the problem or start with doing better with existing resources?
No full textReforming development assistance and debt relief have been main threads in Geske Dijkstra’s notable professional career. We worked together on those issues over two decades ago while we were both at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Plus ça change? Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic lowincome countries have been hit hard economically; first by the global recession induced by the public health related lockdowns, then by spikes in food, fuel and fertilizer prices associated with the recovery from the recession and pandemicrelated supply disruptions, and subsequently by further surges in food and fertilizer prices with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The capacity of poor nations’ governments to protect the livelihoods of their populations from the impacts of the multiple crises quickly eroded. Bilateral development assistance failed to come to a rescue, multilateral contingency financing mechanisms proved inadequate and fraught with old-fashioned, ill-conceived policy conditionality, and the lack of proper sovereign debt work-out mechanisms was painfully felt again as the number of low-income countries facing severe debt distress doubled during these years of crisis. Proper reforms on all these dimensions remain an unfinished agenda. In addition, yet another looming global crisis – climate change – is calling for transformative investments in production systems to stave off this existentialist threat and to set economies on sustainable development pathways. The calls for transformative change come with massive needs for additional (development) finance in magnitudes of hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of US dollars per year over the next couple of decades. However, the prospects for mobilizing new funding in such magnitude seem elusive if only considering the experience with creating new facilities for climate finance.PRIFPRI4; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernanceMarkets, Trade, and Institutions (MTI); Food and Nutrition Polic
Addressing gender inequalities and strengthening women’s agency for climate-resilient and sustainable food systems
No full textClimate change affects every aspect of the food system, including all nodes along agrifood value chains from production to consumption, the food environments in which people live, and outcomes, such as diets and livelihoods. Women and men often have specific roles and responsibilities within food systems, yet structural inequalities (formal and informal) limit women’s access to resources, services and agency. These inequalities affect the ways in which women and men experience and are affected by climate change. In addition to gender, other social factors are at play, such as age, education, marital status, and health and economic conditions. To date, most climate change policies, investments, and interventions do not adequately integrate gender. If climate-smart and climate-resilient interventions do not adequately take gender differences into account, they might exacerbate gender inequalities in food systems by, for instance, increasing women’s labor burden and time poverty, reducing their access to and control over income and assets, and reducing their decision-making power. At the same time, women’s contributions are critical to make food systems more resilient to the negative impacts of climate change, given their specialized knowledge, skills and roles in agrifood systems, within the household, at work and at the community level. Increasing the resilience of food systems requires going beyond addressing gendered vulnerabilities to climate change to create an enabling environment that supports gender equality and women’s empowerment, by removing structural barriers and rigid gender norms, and building equal power dynamics, as part of a process of gender -transformative change.PRIFPRI5; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; Cross-cutting gender themeNatural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation StrategiesCGIAR Gender Platfor
From food subsidies to cash transfers: Assessing economy-wide benefits and trade-offs in Egypt
No full textFood is a vital part of poor households' budgets and so subsidizing staple foods would appear to be an obvious pro-poor policy. Indeed, most countries in North Africa have prioritized large national subsidy programs for staple foods and fuels as their main social safety net. However, these programs account for significant shares of government spending and often drive fiscal deficits, especially when import prices rise. In this paper we use a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model to evaluate the trade-offs between reducing poverty and managing fiscal balances. The modeling framework allows us to measure the efficiency costs of subsidies compared to cash transfers - switching to the latter is an emerging regional trend. We analyze these issues through a detailed case study of Egypt, where efforts to replace food subsidies with cash transfers is already underway. Data is also available in Egypt to design scenarios that realistically reflect potential targeting effectiveness and administrative costs. We show that replacing broad food subsidies with targeted cash transfers of roughly equivalent fiscal costs can improve the welfare of the poorest households, but the continuation of fiscal deficits results in a deceleration of economic growth. The latter gradually reduces welfare gains for the poor and leads to substantial welfare losses for middle-income households who lose access to subsidies without benefitting from cash transfers. Our findings highlight the political challenges facing subsidy reform programs.PRIFPRI3; ISI; CRP2; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; EgyptSSP; Agricultural Investment Data Analyzer (AIDA)Development Strategies and Governance (DSG); Foresight and Policy Modeling (FPM); Transformation Strategies; PI
Strengthening agricultural extension training in Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya
No full textTo strengthen the agricultural extension curriculum, the present study was undertaken in sub-Saharan Africa covering Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya during 2021-2023. The population for the study was agricultural extension professionals within these fi ve countries drawn from universities, public- sector organizations, private- sector organizations, and NGOs. Mixed- method research design, comprising quantitative and qualitative approaches, was employed to assess the process skills and competency gaps in undergraduate (UG) agricultural extension curricula with the following research questions and objectives:
Research Questions
1. Do extension programs effectively address the needs of current food and agricultural systems?
2. What are the critical job skills and core competencies required of extension workers to effectively plan, implement, and evaluate extension work in today’s changing context?
3. Does the UG curriculum in extension education include education and/or training on these job skills or core competencies?
4. What are the barriers to effectively training extension workers with required core competencies, and how can these barriers be removed?
Objectives
1. Review agricultural extension curricula currently in use at AAP member universities at the UG level in Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya.
2. Identify critical process skills and competencies of agricultural extension professionals, process skills gaps, and areas of potential curricular reform.
3. Recommend improvements/reforms of agricultural extension curricula to prepare the next generation of agricultural extension professionals to competently handle EASs delivery.
4. Introduce new/improved curricula among the agricultural extension faculty engaged in training and education in sub-Saharan countries.
The study assessed 11 process skills and competencies -- program planning; program implementation; communication; information and communication technologies (ICTs;, program monitoring and evaluation; personal and professional development; diversity and gender; marketing, brokering, and value chain development; extension soft skills; nutrition; and technical subject matter expertise.Non-PRIFPRI5; CRP2; DCA; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernanceDevelopment Strategies and Governance (DSG); Transformation StrategiesCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM
Maximizing nutrition in key food value chains of Mongolia under climate change
No full textMongolia’s projected warming is far above the global average and could exceed 5 °C by the end of the century. The reliance on pastoral livestock and rainfed agriculture along with its fragile ecosystems put Mongolia’s economy at risk of adverse climate change impacts, particularly from climate extreme events. Eighty percent of Mongolia’s agricultural sector is concentrated in animal husbandry with around one third of the population relying on this livelihood. Beyond livestock, food production is concentrated in few crops: wheat; potatoes; and three vegetables (cabbage, carrot, and turnip). Climate change does not only affect food production but can exacerbate malnutrition by removing food and nutrients in all stages of the food value chain. To identify perceived effects of climate change and measures to reduce climate change impacts in Mongolia's’s key food value chains, we implemented focus group discussions with 214 livestock and vegetable producers, traders, and food consumers. We also conducted 30 key informant interviews at the soum, provincial, and national levels across four agroecosystems in three provinces. Based on this community engagement analysis, we identify interventions that the government and private sector, including herders and farmers, should undertake to increase the food security and nutrition of the country’s prioritized food value chains under climate change.PRIFPRI3; ISI; DCA; Capacity Strengthening; IFPRIOA; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food SupplyNatural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation Strategie
Neonatal mortality risk of vulnerable newborns: A descriptive analysis of subnational, population-based birth cohorts for 238 143 live births in low- and middle-income settings from 2000 to 2017
No full textObjective
We aimed to understand the mortality risks of vulnerable newborns (defined as preterm and/or born weighing smaller or larger compared to a standard population), in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Design
Descriptive multi-country, secondary analysis of individual-level study data of babies born since 2000.
Setting
Sixteen subnational, population-based studies from nine LMICs in sub-Saharan Africa, Southern and Eastern Asia, and Latin America.
Population
Live birth neonates.
Methods
We categorically defined five vulnerable newborn types based on size (large- or appropriate- or small-for-gestational age [LGA, AGA, SGA]), and term (T) and preterm (PT): T + LGA, T + SGA, PT + LGA, PT + AGA, and PT + SGA, with T + AGA (reference). A 10-type definition included low birthweight (LBW) and non-LBW, and a four-type definition collapsed AGA/LGA into one category. We performed imputation for missing birthweights in 13 of the studies.
Main Outcome Measures
Median and interquartile ranges by study for the prevalence, mortality rates and relative mortality risks for the four, six and ten type classification.
Results
There were 238 143 live births with known neonatal status. Four of the six types had higher mortality risk: T + SGA (median relative risk [RR] 2.8, interquartile range [IQR] 2.0–3.2), PT + LGA (median RR 7.3, IQR 2.3–10.4), PT + AGA (median RR 6.0, IQR 4.4–13.2) and PT + SGA (median RR 10.4, IQR 8.6–13.9). T + SGA, PT + LGA and PT + AGA babies who were LBW, had higher risk compared with non-LBW babies.
Conclusions
Small and/or preterm babies in LIMCs have a considerably increased mortality risk compared with babies born at term and larger. This classification system may advance the understanding of the social determinants and biomedical risk factors along with improved treatment that is critical for newborn health.PRIFPRI3; ISINutrition, Diets, and Health (NDH); Food and Nutrition Polic
Structuring the complexity of integrated landscape approaches into selectable, scalable, and measurable attributes
No full textIntegrated landscape approaches (ILA) aim to reconcile multiple, often competing, interests across agriculture, nature conservation, and other land uses. Recognized ILA design principles provide guidance for implementation, yet application remains challenging, and a strong performance evidence-base is yet to be formed. Through a critical literature review and focus group discussions with practitioners, we identified considerable diversity of ILA in actors, temporal, and spatial scales, inter alia. This diversity hampers learning from and steering ILA because of the intractable nature of the concept. Therefore, we developed a tool—an ‘ILA mixing board’—to structure the complexity of ILA into selectable and scalable attributes in a replicable way to allow planning, diagnosing, and comparing ILA. The ILA mixing board tool presents seven qualifiers, each representing a key attribute of ILA design and performance (for example, project flexibility, inclusiveness of the dialogue, and the centrality of the power distribution). Each qualifier has five (non-normative) outcome indicators that can be registered as present or absent. This process in turn guides planners, evaluators and other participating stakeholders involved in landscape management to diagnose the ILA type, or its performance. We apply the ILA mixing board to three ILA cases in Nicaragua, Madagascar, and the Congo Basin to show some of the many possible configurations of qualifiers on the mixing board. Further application of the tool would allow comparative analysis of the complexity of ILA in a structured and manageable way thereby enhancing the understanding of ILA performance and informing the development of evidence-based land use policy.PRIFPRI3; ISI; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; CRP5Natural Resources and Resilience (NRR); Transformation StrategiesCGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE
Commodity price variability monthly summary - April 2023
No full textAbout the Excessive Food Price Variability Tool
The Excessive Food Price Variability Early Warning System was developed and is maintained by IFPRl's Food Security Portal (FSP). It identifies periods of unusual price variability in world commodity markets (i.e. price variability that exceeds a pre-established estimated band). It is updated daily and uses a traffic light system that alerts about the number of days of high, moderate, or low price variability. The excessive price variability measures are estimated through a model of the day to day fluctuations of price variations in futures commodity markets. For all data, trends, and methods, see: https://www.foodsecurityportal.orgNon-PR3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; IFPRI1; Food Security Portal; Feed the Future Innovation Laboratory for Food Security Policy (FSP)Markets, Trade, and Institutions (MTI); Food and Nutrition Polic