The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is the first-ever direct measure of women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agriculture sector. In response to demand from designers and implementors of agricultural development projects, IFPRI developed the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to track the impacts of these projects on women’s empowerment.

Please join us for a presentation by Xinshen Diao and James Thurlow with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on their latest round of country impact modeling. 

This analysis examines the impact of recent and potential global shocks on poverty, hunger, and diets across 17 countries. These shocks include the COVID-19 pandemic, high global commodity prices, and a potential global economic slowdown in 2023.

A high-performing, resilient, and competitive agrifood processing sector can create remunerative employment opportunities, link producers to growing and lucrative urban markets, and help to ensure that consumers have access to sufficient and healthy food. Africa’s food processing sector is growing in response to growing demand for processed and high-value foods in the continent. However, processing firms, many of them small and informal enterprises, still face serious constraints.

The World Health Organization estimates that every year, 600 million people become ill and many die because of unsafe food. Up to 38% of those affected are children under five years of age, and 53% were people living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). To address this gap, the EatSafe Innovation Challenge aims to encourage the development of food safety solutions or safer food products with the goal of improving food safety for consumers in traditional markets, a setting where the majority of LMIC consumers access nutritious foods. 

The new Kenyan government faces a complex domestic and global environment. Rapid population growth and urbanization with limited structural transformation present major challenges to Kenya’s ability to achieve food security for all and become a higher-middle-income country in the medium term.  If recent economic trends are any indication, the country risks not having enough jobs to support the projected increase in the labor force.

Join USAID’s Private Sector Engagement Secretariat and USAID’s Rwanda and Bangladesh Missions on Thursday, October 27, 2022, at 9:30 a.m. ET to learn about promising practices for engaging the private sector to advance and sustain inclusive, agriculture-led economic growth and a well-nourished population, especially among women and children.

Unprecedented extreme weather events linked to climate change are contributing to the current global food and energy price crisis and severely impacting livelihoods and food and nutrition security. In this context, expectations are high for the 27th Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) taking place under the Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The world is facing a potential food crisis worse than any seen since World War II. With Russia’s devastating war on Ukraine, a historic drought and heat wave in China, and an irregular monsoon season in South Asia, food supplies from several of the world’s largest granaries are highly uncertain and concerning. Global hunger has been rising since 2015, and the number of people facing acute, crisis-level food insecurity has doubled to well over 200 million. Famine is threatening the lives of large populations in the Horn of Africa, Yemen, and South Sudan.

The Russian war in Ukraine is hitting the global food supply chain and impacting prices of raw material (largely wheat), fertilizer, and fuel, which limit production, increase costs and depress sales. This has shaped manufacturers’ supply chain strategies and has greatly affected Africa’s food processing industry, despite being far from the conflict zone.

Africa’s agricultural trade capacity and policy are increasingly important as global volatility in agriculture and fertilizer markets is increasing risks for many importing and exporting countries. The 2022 edition of the Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor 2022 (AATM), a flagship of IFPRI and AKADEMIYA2063, analyzes short- and long-term trends and drivers of African agricultural trade flows, including regional policies and the role of global markets.