"IFPRI at 40: Looking Back, Looking Forward" Special Event held on November 18, 2015. Presentation by Agnes Quisumbing, IFPRI.

1. Making a
difference with
IFPRI gender
research
Agnes Quisumbing,
IFPRI
#IFPRI40 November 18, 2015

2. 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

3. • 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?

4. • 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?

5. • 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?

6. • 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?