Making a

difference with

IFPRI gender

researchAgnes Quisumbing,

IFPRI

#IFPRI40 November 18, 2015

What is different about gender research?

• It looks within the household: women and men, boys and girls

• It looks beyond the household: context, institutions, policies matter

• Evidence-based• Iterative: synthesizes learning from interventions and policies and

coordinates knowledge exchange• Integrative: Combines qualitative and quantitative work• Holistic: Both women and men, girls and boys

What makes IFPRI gender research

different?

• Cross-cutting: from land to water, households to communities to value chains, nutrition to education, and across the lifecycle!

• Spotlights data gaps (e.g. land rights) and provides guidance for filling those gaps (both conceptual guidance and concrete tools like survey modules)

• Integrated across all of IFPRI’s major research programs/themes

What makes IFPRI gender research

different?

• Not afraid to challenge paradigms– 1990s: the unitary model

of the household collective

– Today: only individual decisionmaking or ownership matters jointness

• Not afraid to measure the unmeasurable– Women’s Empowerment in

Agriculture Index (WEAI)

What makes IFPRI

gender research

different?

• Changed development paradigms about targeting head of household– PROGRESA and subsequent waves of

targeted CCTs

• Incorporated into programming to reduce gender gaps– Both national and local levels

• Shifted objectives of programming and measurement to focus on assets and empowerment – Ex: design of new Bangladesh Min. of

Ag pilot project informed by WEAI baseline data

How has IFPRI’s gender research made a

difference?