For more than two decades, IFPRI’s research and policy analysis have been a resource for Bangladesh in making impressive strides in ensuring food security and reducing poverty. Working closely with the Bangladesh Ministry of Food and Disaster Management and its Food Planning and Monitoring Unit, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, BRAC, CARE International, and civil society organizations, IFPRI has supported Bangladesh in its goals of improving nutrition, women’s empowerment, social protection, and coping with natural disasters. IFPRI looks forward to deepening its collaboration with these and other partners through its Policy Research and Strategy Support Program and complementary initiatives, and to enhancing long-term capacity in policy analysis and evidence-based research. Such strong collaborative efforts have translated and will continue to translate research into policy action that will help accelerate Bangladesh’s progress in ending hunger and undernutrition.

For four decades, the longstanding collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has been crucial to helping developing countries attain agriculture-led economic growth. The innovative programs and strong evidence base produced through this partnership have contributed to transforming policies and investments for improved food security, nutrition, incomes, and resilience around the world.

In the wake of the food crises of the early 1970s and the resulting World Food Conference of 1974, a group of innovators realized that food security depends not only on crop production, but also on the policies that affect food systems, from farm to table. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was founded in 1975 and for the past four decades has worked to provide partners in donor and recipient countries with solid research and evidence on policy options. IFPRI was fortunate to have as its first board chairman, world-renowned Australian economist Sir John Crawford, who was a passionate advocate for international agricultural research and an architect of CGIAR, of which IFPRI is a member. Agriculture and rural development play a critical role in alleviating poverty and undernutrition. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has focused its efforts on three pillars of food security: improving agricultural productivity, increasing rural livelihoods, and improving community resilience. This demonstrates Australia’s commitment to serving the needs of the poorest and constructing the building blocks of global food security in the long term. In 2013–2014, the Australian government’s spending on food security is expected to total more than 316 million Australian dollars. Working with many longstanding partners, such as the government of Australia and its Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), IFPRI’s research focuses on sustainable agricultural growth that engages the private sector, country-led strategy development, investment in agricultural research, provision of safety nets to strengthen resilience, prioritization of nutrition interventions for women and children, design of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, and partnerships with other stakeholders in global movements, such as Scaling Up Nutrition. IFPRI, and its partners, help to improve programs and initiatives for vulnerable people. By serving as a trusted voice on food policy issues, IFPRI works to change mindsets and provide evidence on how to improve food and nutrition security. Together, IFPRI and the Australian government support cutting-edge research and measurable targets for increasing agricultural productivity. This brochure highlights some of the key collaborations betweenIFPRI and the Australian government. This brochure highlights key collaborations between IFPRI and the Australian government, often in partnership with other institutions.

Two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, economic, and social disruptions caused by this global crisis continue to evolve. The impacts of the pandemic are likely to endure for years to come, with poor, marginalized, and vulnerable groups the most affected. In COVID-19 & Global Food Security: Two Years Later, the editors bring together contributions from new IFPRI research, blogs, and the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub to examine the pandemic’s effects on poverty, food security, nutrition, and health around the world. This volume presents key lessons learned on food security and food system resilience in 2020 and 2021 and assesses the effectiveness of policy responses to the crisis. Looking forward, the authors consider how the pandemic experience can inform both recovery and longer-term efforts to build more resilient food systems.

This book is a historical review of international food and agriculture since the founding of the international organizations following the Second World War, including the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and into the 1970s, when CGIAR was established and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was created to recycle petrodollars. Despite numerous international consultations and an increased number of actors, there has been no real growth in international assistance, except for the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The book concurrently focuses on the structural transformation of developing countries in Asia and Africa, with some making great strides in small farmer development and in achieving structural transformation of their economies. Some have also achieved Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG2, but most have not. Not only are some countries, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, lagging behind, but they face new challenges of climate change, competition from emerging countries, population pressure, urbanization, environmental decay, and dietary transition. Lagging developing countries need huge investments in human capital, and physical and institutional infrastructure, to take advantage of rapid change in technologies, but the role of international assistance in financial transfers has diminished. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only set many poorer countries back but starkly revealed the weaknesses of past strategies. Transformative changes are needed in developing countries with international cooperation to achieve better outcomes. Will change in the United States bring new opportunities for multilateral cooperation?"--

EC financial support has helped to ensure that IFPRI’s research remains responsive, innovative, and effective in tackling the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving food security and poverty alleviation. Over the years, the EC’s support to IFPRI provided the necessary foundation for cuttingedge research in areas such as climate change; biofuels; and the nexus of agriculture, nutrition, and health. This support has helped IFPRI partner with strategic European partners in civil society, higher education, and public sector areas, with a focus on making food security research accessible through the development of global public goods, capacity-building networks, and technological platforms. In June 2015, IFPRI, the EC, and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) joined together to bring experts and stakeholders to discuss the latest thinking on sustainably improving livelihoods and welfare at a Brussels workshop, “Improving Food Systems for Better Lives.” The workshop highlighted the need for greater convergence among diverse actors, sectors, and stakeholders for the development and implementation of innovative solutions that will improve food systems and enhance food and nutrition security around the world.