International Food Policy Research Institute

IFPRI’s research and engagement centers on a holistic three-pronged approach to contribute to reducing poverty and ensuring that all people have access to sustainable diets: (1) clarify the situation and outlook of a particular situation or challenge, (2) test and scale potential technological and policy solutions, and (3) help build an enabling environment to facilitate change.

IFPRI collaborates with more than 300 partner organizations to increase the impact of the Institute’s research and build connections across topical areas and the policy community for sustainable, resilient, and equitable agriculture and food systems. These partners include a wide range of local and national partners in low- and middle-income countries, as well as research, scaling, advocacy, and funding partners, who help provide rigorous, policy-relevant evidence and recommendations to policymakers, donors, the private sector, and civil society. As part of CGIAR, IFPRI also maintains strong engagement with colleagues from other CGIAR Centers.

IFPRI conducts cross-cutting research on a wide range of topics, including nutrition, food prices, gender, climate change, natural resource management, agricultural innovation, social protection, and agricultural extension. The Institute’s efforts focus on research and innovation to deliver integrated policies, investments, governance processes, and capacity building that support equitable and sustainable food systems transformation, as well as improved livelihoods and healthy diets. IFPRI adapts its research and capacity strengthening work to address diverse challenges and opportunities in different countries around the world.

As a Research Center of CGIAR, IFPRI’s research activities align with CGIAR’s five impact areas: nutrition, health, and food security; poverty reduction, livelihoods, and jobs; environmental health and biodiversity; gender equality, youth, and social inclusion; and climate adaptation and mitigation.

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.

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 is led by Dr. Johan Swinnen and governed by its Board of Trustees. IFPRI’s research activities are organized into seven research units:

• Development Strategies and Governance
• Foresight and Policy Modeling
• Innovation Policy and Scaling
• Natural Resources and Resilience
• Markets, Trade, and Institutions
• Nutrition, Diets, and Health
• Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion

Researchers from multiple units staff IFPRI’s country offices and regional offices in Africa and Asia.

Other divisions within IFPRI include the Office of the Director General, Communications and Public Affairs, Finance and Administration, and Human Resources.

• Johan (Jo) Swinnen (2020–Present)
• Shenggen Fan (2009–2020)
• Joachim von Braun (2002–2009)
• Per Pinstrup-Andersen (1992–2002)
• Just Faaland (interim DG, 1990–1992)
• John Williams Mellor (1977–1990)
• Dale E. Hathaway (1975–1977, founding director general)

Evaluating the impact of policy-oriented research is a complex undertaking, considering difficulties in quantifying the impact of knowledge and ideas on reduced poverty and/or increased income or the attribution of a change in these numbers to a specific study or research project.

Despite the challenges of evaluating research impact, IFPRI has commissioned 46 independent, peer-reviewed assessments of its work. The Institute also works with researchers to validate its efforts and shares these findings through peer-reviewed briefs, brochures, blogs, events, and other outputs. IFPRI publishes a blog series called Making a Difference, which showcases impact stories that represent a range of research, communications, and capacity-strengthening work.

Conservative estimates of IFPRI’s impact show that just a few of the Institute’s activities—in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Tanzania, and Viet Nam—have led to economic and environmental benefits exceeding US$1 billion. IFPRI’s research has also been shown to have indirectly benefited more than 270 million people around the world. In Brazil, IFPRI’s evaluation of the country’s conditional cash transfer program led to changes in the targeting approach of its successor program, Bolsa Família, which has 52 million beneficiaries. In Viet Nam, the Institute’s policy advice on rice market reforms helped create better incomes and food security for 24 million people engaged in rice farming. IFPRI’s research on the economic benefits of road building in India helped 18 million people escape poverty through the Prime Minister’s Rural Roads Program.

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.

• IFPRI. 2024. “Global Food Policy Report 2024: Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Nutrition.”
• IFPRI. 2024. “2023 Annual Report.”