Research Talks

How has COVID impacted the way researchers do fieldwork?

This episode features IFPRI Research Analyst Shweta Gupta (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/shweta-gupta) who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef), tells the story of how the pandemic has upended the way IFPRI researchers are doing household surveys. In Gujarat, India, Shweta and her colleagues have launched a multi-round survey of rural women, interviewing them over the phone instead of in-person. The switch has had huge implications, from how enumerators are being trained to how many respondents are willing to participate. But the biggest questions of all: who is listening in on women’s phone conversations, and how might that impact their survey answers?

To learn more:

-Blog post: https://pim.cgiar.org/2020/07/14/phone-surveys-to-understand-gendered-impacts-of-covid-19-a-cautionary-note/

-Book: COVID-19 & Global Food Security - http://bit.ly/IFPRICovidBook

-IFPRI Resources And Analyses Of COVID-19 Impact - https://www.ifpri.org/covid-19

-Subscribe IFPRI Insights newsletter and event annoucements at www.ifpri.org/content/newsletter-subscription

Donors & Partners:

PIM: https://pim.cgiar.org/

BMZ: https://www.bmz.de/en/

SEWA: http://www.sewa.org/

Interviewee: Shweta Gupta

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample and Sarah Edwards

This episode features IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Derek Headey ( https://www.ifpri.org/profile/derek-headey ) who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef ( https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef) , tells the story of how IFPRI researchers decided to probe the link between the presence of livestock feces in the home and childhood stunting. The research took them from Ethiopia to Burkina Faso, where they designed an intervention to test whether simple poultry value chain improvements as well as water, sanitation, and hygiene education could reduce contaminants and improve young children’s nutritional status.

To learn more:

Blog post: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/newsflash-chickens-dont-use-toilets

Journal Article: https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0270

Journal Article: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0160590

Project Page: https://www.ifpri.org/project/advancing-research-nutrition-and-agriculture-arena

Donors & Partners: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Feed the Future at USAID (https://www.feedthefuture.gov/) , and A4NH

Interviewee: Derek Headey

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample

How do you carry out research in the middle of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world: the civil war in Yemen?

This episode features IFPRI Research Fellow Sikandra Kurdi (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sikandra-kurdi) who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef ( https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef), tells the story of how Yemen’s Social Fund for Development and IFPRI partnered on the evaluation of a project that gave cash transfers and nutrition education to women in rural Yemen. But when civil war broke out across the country, the Social Fund had to figure out how to keep the project going, and even expand it. The story reflects the determination of IFPRI’s partners in reaching the most vulnerable people in the world and how, against all odds, research showed that nutrition interventions can still work in humanitarian settings.

Interviewee: Sikandra Kurdi

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample

Music/Credits (if any): News Clip from CNN. 2015. Houthi rebels seize airport; U.N. envoy warns Yemen at 'edge of civil war'. https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/22/middleeast/yemen-unrest/.

To learn more:

Blog post [link forthcoming]

Policy Seminar: https://www.ifpri.org/event/impacts-cash-transfers-preventing-malnutrition-yemen

Journal Article: https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12973

Policy Brief: http://ebrary.ifpri.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/133205/filename/133416.pdf

Full Report: https://www.ifpri.org/publication/cash-nutrition-intervention-yemen-impact-evaluation-study

Donors & Partners:

Yemen Social Fund for Development: http://www.sfd-yemen.org/index.php

Yemen Emergency Crisis Response Program: https://www.ye.undp.org/content/yemen/en/home/projects/yemen-emergency-crisis--response----wb.html#:~:text=Through%20the%20Yemen%20Emergency%20Crisis,shore%2Dup%20SFD%20and%20PWP.&text=Our%20work%20brings%20together%20humanitarian,from%20falling%20into%20further%20fragility.

The World Bank: http://projects.worldbank.org/P159053?lang=en

United Nations Development Programme: https://www.undp.org/

CGIAR Program on Institutions and Markets: https://pim.cgiar.org/

Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit: https://www.giz.de/en/html/index.html

Nordic Trust Fund

What happens when researchers start learning all about marketing?

This episode features IFPRI Program Manager Vartika Singh who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef, tells the story of how IFPRI researchers in India set out to investigate whether government-issued soil health cards were effective in getting smallholders to improve their farming practices. Instead, the researchers discovered an entirely different challenge: farmers couldn’t understand the cards. Working with a visual designer, IFPRI and its partners embarked on a process usually reserved for the marketing sector: helping make a product easy to understand and use. The story holds numerous lessons on how to make research more accessible to a wide audience.

To learn more:

- Blog post: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/designing-better-soil-health-card-farmers-india

- Book Chapter: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128187524000084?via%3Dihub

- Cereal Systems Initiative For South Asia (CSISA): http://csisa.org/

- CISA Research Note: https://csisa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/SHC-Research-Note-12.pdf

- India Ministry Of Agriculture Soil Health Card Scheme: http://soilhealth.dac.gov.in/

Donors & Partners:

- International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center: https://www.cimmyt.org/

- The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI): https://irri.org/

- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

- CGIAR Program on Institutions and Markets (PIM): http://pim.cgiar.org/

- Bihar Agriculture University: https://www.bausabour.ac.in/

- Indian Council of Agricultural Research: https://www.icar.org.in/

Interviewee: Vartika Singh

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample

Can cash transfers reduce violence within the home, keeping women safe from intimate partner violence?

This episode features IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Melissa Hidrobo (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/melissa-hidrobo) and Research Fellow Shalini Roy (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/shalini-roy) who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef), tell the story of how development programs can sometimes have surprising impacts. When Melissa found that a cash transfer program in Ecuador reduced intimate partner violence, defined as physical, sexual, or emotional harm by a current or former partner or spouse, she and Shalini decided to team up and see whether the same results held in Bangladesh and Mali. Their work shows the vast potential of cash transfer programs, which are already used by many countries around the world, to reduce intimate partner violence at a large scale.

Interviewees: Melissa Hidrobo; Shalini Roy

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample

To learn more:

Blog: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/cash-transfers-and-intimate-partner-violence

VoxDev - Op-ed: https://voxdev.org/topic/public-economics/cash-transfers-and-intimate-partner-violence

TMRI Website: https://bangladesh.ifpri.info/tag/tmri/

Project Output: https://www.ifpri.org/cash-transfer-and-intimate-partner-violence-research-collaborative-project-outputs

Donors & Partners: United States Agency for International Development, World Bank, Sexual Violence Research Initiative, PIM, CGIAR, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, the Government of Mali, World Food Program

Can researchers help develop a financial tool that lowers risk for both farmers and private banks?

This episode features IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Liangzhi You who, in a conversation with Sivan Yosef, tells the story of how IFPRI researchers partnered up with the Government of Kenya as well as private-sector partners in Kenya to develop Risk Contingent Credit (RCC). RCC is a financial inclusion product that allows farmers to get loans for much-needed agricultural supplies, but it also uses insurance to guarantee that banks will be repaid, even during production shocks such as catastrophic drought. It highlights the potential role of the private sector in scaling up solutions for the poor.

To learn more:

Website: https://www.ifpri.org/project/satellite-technologies-innovative-and-smart-financing-food-security-satisfy

Blog Post: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/gaining-better-understanding-local-fertilizer-prices-african-smallholder-farmers

Related publication: https://www.ifpri.org/publication/design-and-rating-risk-contingent-credit-balancing-business-and-financial-risks-kenyan

Interviewee: Liangzhi You

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample

Can impact evaluation drive changes in the design of social safety net programs?

This episode features Egypt’s Minister of Social Solidarity Nivine El-Kabbag along with IFPRI researchers Clemens Breisinger and Hoda El Enbaby. In a conversation with Sivan Yosef and Drew Sample, they share the story of how IFPRI collaborated with the government of Egypt to evaluate the country’s first national conditional cash transfer program, Takaful and Karama. The research results had a powerful impact, prompting policymakers to allocate more funds to protecting the poor. The evaluation was commissioned by the World Bank and funded by the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

To learn more:

-Blog post : https://www.ifpri.org/blog/evaluation-finds-successes-egypts-first-conditional-cash-transfer-program

-Book Chapter : https://www.ifpri.org/publication/targeting-social-safety-nets-using-proxy-means-tests-evidence-egypts-takaful-and-karama

-Policy Brief : https://www.ifpri.org/publication/egypts-takaful-and-karama-cash-transfer-program-evaluation-program-impacts-and

Donors & Partners:

- United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office : https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office

- World Bank : https://www.worldbank.org/

Interviewees: Nivine El-Kabbag, Clemens Breisinger, Hoda El Enbaby

Interviewers: Sivan Yosef, Drew Sample

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Drew Sample

Can a smartphone camera help provide a safety net for smallholder famers?

This episode features IFPRI’s Research Fellow Berber Kramer ( https://www.ifpri.org/profile/berber-kramer), who in a conversation with Sivan Yosef (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef), shares the story of how IFPRI researchers came up with the idea of using smartphone pictures to help small farmers in India reap the benefits of crop insurance. Working together, IFPRI researchers are testing a suite of innovative financial instruments that have the potential to help farmers manage risk, with the aim of improving resilience, incomes, and making inroads against poverty.

To learn more:

- Blog post ( https://www.ifpri.org/blog/picture-based-crop-insurance-it-feasible-it-sustainable)

- Journal Article ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.deveng.2019.100042)

- Project Website (https://www.ifpri.org/project/PBInsurance)

Donors & Partners:

- CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (http://pim.cgiar.org/)

- CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security ( https://ccafs.cgiar.org/)

- International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) (https://www.3ieimpact.org/)

- Borlaug Institute for South Asia (https://bisa.org/)

- HDFC ERGO General Insurance (https://www.hdfcergo.com/)

- CGIAR Platform for Big Data on Agriculture https://bigdata.cgiar.org/)

- Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (https://www.cabi.org/)

- Manchester University

- Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (http://www.ncfc.gov.in/)

- Dvara E-Registry (https://dvaraeregistry.com/)

- Digital Credit Observatory (https://cega.berkeley.edu/initiative/digital-credit-observatory/)

Interviewee: Berber Kramer

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Smita Aggarwal

How do you conduct research under a global pandemic?

This episode features two interviews illuminating the research process in an era of lockdowns and social distancing. IFPRI’s Senior Research Fellow Xiaobo Zhang (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/xiaobo-zhang) , in a conversation with Sivan Yosef (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef) , talks about using a fleet of student volunteers to conduct a survey of 2,400 small and medium businesses in China, to find out how they have fared economically. Rob Vos (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/rob-vos), Director of IFPRI’s Markets, Trade and Institutions Division, discusses his modelling work with colleagues that projects the impacts of COVID-19 on global and regional food security. Both interviews show that high-quality research is still possible and is more important than ever.

To learn more:

-Blog post 1: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/covid-19-spreads-no-major-concern-global-food-security-yet

-Blog post 2: https://www.ifpri.org/blog/covid-19s-impact-chinas-small-and-medium-sized-businesses

-COVID19 Blog Series: https://www.ifpri.org/landing/covid-19-blog-landing-page

Donors & Partners:

- Peking University (http://english.pku.edu.cn/)

- Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (http://eng.suibe.edu.cn/)

- Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (https://iie-en.gdufs.edu.cn/)

- Harbin Institute of Technology at Shenzhen (http://en.hit.edu.cn/)

Interviewees: Xiaobo Zhang, Rob Vos

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producer: Sivan Yosef

Sound Editor: Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Smita Aggarwal

How do you collect data in very remote, hard-to-reach places?

This episode features IFPRI’s Research Fellow Emily Schmidt (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/emily-schmidt), who in a conversation with Sivan Yosef (https://www.ifpri.org/profile/sivan-yosef), shares how IFPRI researchers began engaging in Papua New Guinea, travelling through difficult terrain to collect household data and working with partners to build up capacity to do research and evidence-based policy analysis. Their results have illuminated the diverse rural livelihood strategies within the country.

Interview Transcript: https://www.ifpri.org/file/115532/download

To learn more:

• Blog post (https://www.ifpri.org/blog/new-data-offers-insights-rural-poverty-and-undernutrition-papua-new-guinea )

• Website (https://www.ifpri.org/country/papua-new-guinea)

• Featured publication: Synopsis: Papua New Guinea household survey on food systems (2018): Initial findings ( https://www.ifpri.org/publication/synopsis-papua-new-guinea-household-survey-food-systems-2018-initial-findings)

• IFPRI publications on Papua New Guinea: https://www.ifpri.org/collections/related/publications/146

Donors & Partners: Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, PIM, CGIAR, World Vision International, University of Papua New Guinea, UNICEF

Interviewee: Emily Schmidt

Interviewer: Sivan Yosef

Producers: Sivan Yosef

Editor: Sivan Yosef and Jennifer Weingart

Promotions: Smita Aggarwal

Music/Credits:

• “The El Nino of 2015-2016”. World Meteorological Organization – WMO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v92Iqihct98&t=1s

• “Fighting an ancient parasite: malaria research program in Papua New Guinea.“ Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpZRFg0xzeE