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Food Policy Research Capacity Indicators
No full textThe motivation to measure food policy research capacity stems from a pressing need to understand what a country's primary constraints are in undertaking food policy research and using it effectively in the policy process. With such understanding, capacity-development interventions can become easier to design and capacity building programs can be more effective. Food policy research is defined here as any socioeconomic or policy-related research in the food, agriculture, and natural-resource sectors. In this database, two country-level food policy research capacity indicators are presented. The first indicator is the number of full-time equivalent analysts or researchers with PhDs or their equivalent analysts or researchers with PhDs or their equivalent per one million rural citizens. This number is indicative of a country's investment in policy research activities. Although financial and physical resources are not explicitly included in this measure, it is assumed that the number of researchers acts as a proxy for these other food policy research inputs. This indicator includes staff at government ministries, higher education institutes, and research organizations that undertake food policy research as defined above. Staff members with a master's degree are valued at half of a PhD, and those with a bachelor's degree are valued at a quarter of a PhD. The number of staff is also scaled by the proportion of time spent on food policy research which is dependent on the type of institution.
The second indicator is the number of food policy relevant journal articles published internationally within the last five years per full-time PhD-equivalent researcher. This input-output ratio measure is indicative of the efficiency of the policy research environment. The number of publications was determined from searches in the EconLit and Web of Science databases for journal articles related to food policy and authored by experts who were counted in the assessment of the first indicator. Earlier attempts to quantify and collect comparable data on other policy research outputs, such as policy briefs, interactions with government ministries, or conference contributions presented numerous challenges. For this reason, and because international publications guarantee a minimum and comparable level of quality, this indicator was chosen.
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Food Policy Research Capacity Indicators (FPRCI), 2010-2019
No full textFood policy research plays a crucial role in guiding agricultural transformation in developing countries. To achieve food security goals, countries need to strengthen their capacity to conduct food policy research. Strong local policy research institutions help shaping evidence-based policymaking. Measuring national capacity for food policy research is important for identifying capacity gaps in food policy research and guiding the allocation of resources to fill those gaps.
“Food policy research capacity” is defined as the ability to do socioeconomic or policy-related research in the areas of food, agriculture, nutrition, or natural resources. To measure this capacity, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has developed a set of indicators for the quantity and quality of policy research at the country level.
IFPRI created the Food Policy Research Capacity Indicators (FPRCI) database in 2010 and has since continued to expand and refine it. Data are currently collected for 33 countries; data for Myanmar was added in 2017. A consistent methodology is followed to enable a comparison of values across time and countries. The database was most recently updated with numbers for 2019.
Analysts/researchers counts the professionals employed at local organizations whose work involves food policy research or analysis. To introduce some uniformity, IFPRI also presents a modified quantification of this headcount: full-time equivalent analysts/researchers with PhD. To obtain an indicator of per capita food policy research capacity, this research capacity is then divided by the country’s rural population (full-time equivalent researchers per million rural residents). This helps to illustrate the impact of local food policy research in a country. This indicator was last updated in 2015.
The quality of a country’s food policy research capacity is estimated by tallying the number of relevant international publications in peer-reviewed journals over a five-year period. IFPRI views this as a reflection of the local enabling intellectual environment for food policy research. This indicator allows for comparison across countries, as it ensures an internationally accepted standard of quality for publications. The final indicator is derived by dividing the number of international publications by the number of full-time equivalent researchers with a PhD, providing a measure of productivity
Community participation agreements: a model for welfare reform from community-based research
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In its June 2001 budget, the Federal Government announced a new framework for welfare reform, Australians Working Together. One component of the framework is the proposed development of Community Participation Agreements in remote Indigenous communities, to deal with welfare income payments, mutual obligation and related service delivery. This paper presents the results of community consideration and the author’s field research between March and August 2001 at Mutitjulu, Central Australia, regarding what such an Agreement might look like on the ground.
Mutitjulu presents a microcosm of many of the issues currently affecting remote Indigenous communities. As Mutitjulu residents struggle daily to come to terms with substantial economic and social difficulties, they find their culturally-based forms of social and cultural capital are being undermined by external factors seemingly beyond their immediate control. These include:
the continuing failure of governments to develop a comprehensive approach to planning and service delivery, reflected in a band-aid approach to addressing welfare dependence;
the debilitating impacts of inter-generational dependence on welfare income; and
the multiplicity of local corporate structures and institutions with ill-defined roles and poor accountability to the Mutitjulu community.
The failure to adequately address welfare dependence and major community problems of substance abuse, family breakdown, domestic violence, and low levels of education is viewed by Anangu (local Aboriginal people) as directly contributing to a noticeable deterioration in the wellbeing of individuals, their families and the community at large. There is growing frustration over the failure, at all levels, to deal effectively with these matters.
The Mutitjulu Community Council has formally decided to proceed with the development of a Community Participation and Partnership Agreement (the ‘Mutitjulu Agreement’), in partnership with government and other stakeholders, as one means to begin addressing these matters. The development of practical partnerships with key government departments and local agencies will be a critical factor in the overall success of the proposed Mutitjulu Agreement. It is for this reason that the name of the proposed Agreement has been expanded to include the strategy of ‘partnership’ and well as ‘participation’.
The paper begins with an overview of the background to the community-based research, terms of reference and research methodology. The proposed Mutitjulu Agreement is then placed in its national policy context to identify the factors that have generated this particular initiative.
The paper goes on to describe the community context for the Agreement, including the nature of the local welfare economy, and Anangu views about the impacts of the welfare system. Consideration is given to the nature of contemporary Anangu social and economic relations, and how the term ‘participation’ might be most relevantly defined for the purposes of a community agreement about participation
A critical review of the capability approach in Australian Indigenous policy
Get PDFThe capability approach has recently been used in Australian Indigenous policy formation. Of particular note is how it has been used in some instances to justify current paternalistic and directive policies for Indigenous Australians. These include behavioural conditionalities on state support and income management—policy apparatuses that aim to create individual responsibility and to re-engineer the social norms of Indigenous people. This interpretation of the capability approach is at odds with the writings of Sen, because it overlooks the core concepts of freedom, agency and pluralism. To examine this tension, this paper reviews the contestation between capability scholars and commentators on Indigenous policy, paying particular attention to four areas: human capability vs human capital, deficit discourse, individual responsibility, and the ends and means of policy. Finally, to reinvigorate the capability approach in Australian Indigenous policy, six areas are suggested in which the capability approach could be used in the future
Malawi Agriculture and Food Security Policy Processes Baseline Survey, 2015
No full textSeveral initiatives in Malawi have sought to strengthen the processes through which the design and content of policies, strategies, and programs in the agriculture sector that affect the nation’s food security are established. A two-part study was done under the New Alliance Policy Acceleration Support: Malawi Project (NAPAS: Malawi) to assess the quality of these policy processes and the institutional framework through which they are conducted and how perceptions of their quality have changed over time. The study is based on a two-round survey of national stakeholders in Malawi on issues centered on agriculture or food security that was conducted in 2015 and 2017/18.
This study contains data from the endline survey. The endline survey was conducted in late 2017 and early 2018. The 86 individuals who made up the analytical sample for the baseline survey were contacted again and asked to complete an online questionnaire that replicated three of the five modules from the baseline survey. In total 55 respondents, while the other 12 endline survey respondents were replacements for baseline survey respondents who no longer participate in agriculture and food security policy processes in Malawi. These replacements generally were the current holders of the institutional positions held by the earlier baseline survey respondents.
The endline survey consists of three modules.
Respondent details; influence of institution within policy processes
Opinion on quality of agriculture and food security policy processes in Malawi
Opinion on quality of institutional architecture for agriculture and food security policy processes in MalawiIFPRI1; Open Access;DSG
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) research data management and open access policy
No full textIn pursuit of its mandate to provide research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) produces a wide range of publications, datasets, and other research-based information resources. IFPRI considers the outputs of its research to be international public goods and is committed to facilitating their widespread distribution and use by providing unrestricted public access.
The Policy supersedes all previous IFPRI policies related to research dataset management, including those approved in 2000 and updated in 2010 and 2019 as well as the IFPRI Open Access Policy issued in 2012 and updated in 2019, specifically in relation to research data. It is also aligned with the IFPRI Policy on Intellectual Property, as approved by IFPRI’s Senior Management Team on November11, 2020
Engaging Indigenous economy: a selected annotated bibliography of Jon Altman’s writings 1979‒2014
Get PDFThis annotated bibliography aims to summarise many of the themes to which Jon Altman, foundation director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, has dedicated his career to date.
Abstract
\u27Engaging Indigenous Economy: A Selected Annotated Bibliography of Jon Altman’s Writings 1979–2014\u27 is published in conjunction with the conference ‘Engaging Indigenous economy: Debating diverse approaches’, convened at the Australian National University, 4–5 September 2014. The publication and conference coincide with Jon Altman’s retirement from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), where he was foundation director from 1990 to 2010. The annotated bibliography aims to summarise many of the themes to which Altman has dedicated his career to date, and is designed to be a navigational tool for paper presenters, conference delegates and others wishing to engage with Altman’s work.
The bibliography was written in conversation with Jon Altman and is structured around the six conference themes selected by conveners Kirrily Jordan, Tim Rowse and Will Sanders to reflect Altman’s writings: comparative modern hunter–gatherer studies; economic hybridity and alternate development; employment and labour markets; land rights and native title; sustainable land-based indigenous livelihoods; and neoliberalism or the return of the guardian state?
The bibliography has its basis in an earlier publication, The Hybrid Economy Topic Guide, prepared by Susie Russell as an element of the Australian Research Council Discovery project ‘Hybrid economic futures for remote Indigenous Australia: Linking poverty reduction and natural resource management’. In looking to update this topic guide in early 2014, a decision was made to considerably extend its coverage to encompass a far wider selection of Altman’s published research.
Given the breadth of Altman’s research over a long career, it has not been possible to include all of his published work; however, the bibliography covers a large proportion of his written contribution. Classification of works according to the conference themes has required judgments, as many publications could be allocated to more than one theme. The authors have sought to address the challenge of some inevitable arbitrary judgment by developing a set of keywords for each annotated item
Malawi Agriculture and Food Security Policy Processes Endline Survey, 2017/18
No full textSeveral initiatives in Malawi have sought to strengthen the processes through which the design and content of policies, strategies, and programs in the agriculture sector that affect the nation’s food security are established. A two-part study was done under the New Alliance Policy Acceleration Support: Malawi Project (NAPAS: Malawi) to assess the quality of these policy processes and the institutional framework through which they are conducted and how perceptions of their quality have changed over time. The study is based on a two-round survey of national stakeholders in Malawi on issues centered on agriculture or food security that was conducted in 2015 and 2017/18. This study contains data from the baseline survey. The baseline survey was administered between June and August 2015 to a purposively selected survey sample made of about 100 national level stakeholders in these policy processes. These individuals were asked to complete an online questionnaire that captured their opinions on a range of questions related to the quality of agriculture and food security policy processes at the national level in Malawi. At the end of the baseline survey administration period, responses had been obtained from 86 individuals. The baseline survey consists of five modules: 1)Respondent details; influence of institution within policy processes; 2)Opinion on quality of agriculture and food security policy processes in Malawi; 3) Opinion on quality of institutional architecture for agriculture and food security policy processes in Malawi; 4) Factors that affect agenda-setting within policy processes on agriculture and food security issues and the design of the policies or programs considered; 5)Participation by respondent in agriculture and food security policy process events
In search of an outstations policy for Indigenous Australians
Get PDFThere is a danger that policy-makers will fall into the trap of conceptualising Indigenous residence as occurring in some fixed hierarchy of settlements, rather than as occurring regionally and flexibly between larger and smaller communities and between smaller communities. This paper explores some issues for urgent consideration before any new policy for outstations is developed under the new administrative arrangements in Indigenous affairs. The research reported here is animated by a long-standing interest in the livelihoods of Indigenous people who reside at small remote communities, usually termed outstations, or homelands, or emerging communities. The paper uses official secondary data to demonstrate that there is no compelling case for a policy change that would encourage recentralisation from small discrete Indigenous communities to larger discrete Indigenous communities. Nor is there a compelling policy case for a move from outstations to townships or from townships to larger urban centres to improve Indigenous people’s livelihood prospects. This paper suggests there is too little research and understanding of culturally distinct, but evolving, patterns of Indigenous mobility and migration in remote and very remote Australia. In particular, there is a danger that policy-makers will fall into the trap of conceptualising Indigenous residence as occurring in some fixed hierarchy of settlements, rather than as occurring regionally and flexibly between larger and smaller communities and between smaller communities. There is a distinct possibility that government policy aspirations are out of touch with the aspiration of many Indigenous people to decentralise. This aspiration is not surprising, in part because the Indigenous estate is expanding and new land owners are likely to want to live on their land. There is also local recognition in some regions that some townships, like Wadeye, are becoming too large and problematic (in part because they lack an economic base), and that decentralisation provides better livelihood options. While recent ministerial calls for an open debate on outstations is endorsed, it is unfortunate that much of this debate is being conducted with little input from outstations people themselves and with limited reference to expert local and regional knowledge. It might be timely for a House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Inquiry into the outstations situation before too much new policy is made. Such an inquiry might find that there are diverse futures for Indigenous people at outstations at variance with the monolithic mainstreaming perspective that appears to be dominating emerging policy discourse. Such futures might see Indigenous people living on the land they own, moving between larger and smaller communities, and pursuing livelihoods in a hybrid economy that includes payment for the delivery of environmental services, participation in the customary or non market sector, and the pursuit of commercial opportunities. Such non-mainstream possibilities need to be explored
Public Policy in Urban Development: The Privatization of Public Goods in Ciudad Juárez
No full textIn this research paper, the author explores public policy issues related to the increasing elite involvement in urban development and privatization in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
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