CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets - Gender Strategy

Gender StrategyFarmers and other rural actors are not homogeneous. Particularly in the developing world, their abilities to initiate and expand agricultural activities are frequently shaped by gender roles, responsibilities, and resources. Reducing gender disparities has been widely recognized as a critical issue in agriculture and rural development. [...] Because gender roles affect decisions on both production and consumption, research must clarify how they do so in specific contexts. CRP-PIM supports research that facilitates: Improved policies to accelerate adoption of sustainable technologies by small-scale producers; Better allocation and effectiveness of public and private investment; Improved macroeconomic, trade, and sectoral policies; Governance and collective action to improve access for the rural poor and women to services and property; Better performance of markets to benefit producers and consumers; and Integration of small-scale producers into value chains

Leeway for the loyal: a model of employee discretion

This article examines the factors underlying task discretion from an economist's perspective. It argues that the key axis for understanding discretion is the trade-off between the positive effects of discretion on potential output per employee and the negative effects of greater leeway on work effort. In empirical analysis using matched employer-employee data, it is shown that discretion is strongly affected by the level of employee commitment. In addition, discretion is generally greater in high-skilled jobs, although not without exceptions, and lower where employees are under-skilled. Homeworking and flexitime policies raise employee discretion. The impact of teamworking is mixed. In about half of cases team members do not jointly decide about work matters, and the net effect of teams on task discretion in these cases is negative. In other cases, where team members do decide matters jointly, the impact is found to be neutral according to employees' perceptions, or positive according to managers' perceptions. There are also significant and substantial unobserved establishment-level factors which affect task discretion

Impact on the trade negotiations between the European Union and two African Regional Economic Communities

The trade relations between African countries and the European Union have high stakes for both regions. The negotiations of the Economic Partnership Agreements have remained a sensitive agenda since 2007. PIM modelling capacity has provided independent quantifications of the agreements. The research outputs have been at the core of the official impact assessment to the policy makers. The current policy outcomes are consistent with the results provided and contrast the outcomes of trade agreements on development and food security

A digital agricultural extension platform to boost adoption of improved technologies and practices in Ethiopia

In 2019, the Government of Ethiopia launched "Digitalizing Agricultural Advisory Services", a country-wide project aiming at developing a digital platform to deliver location and time-specific advice to farmers. IFPRI's results on the benefits of Digital Green's video-mediated approach to agricultural extension strongly influenced this investment

Direct Seed Marketing boosts seed availability and improves crop yields and commercialization in Ethiopia (26% increase in maize yield)

Ethiopia’s Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) innovation, scaled up to 290 woredas and 1.5 million smallholder farmers in 2019, improved seed availability for maize, wheat, and teff and led to significantly positive effects on maize productivity (26% increase in yield) and commercialization (5% increase in the share of harvest sold). PIM research had informed the scaling of DSM and a PIM team conducted an ex-post impact assessment of DSM in 2020

Demonstrated economic benefits of community forest concessions make the case for continued community stewardship of 400,000 hectares of tropical forests in Guatemala

The National Council for Protected Areas issued the revised norms for forest concessions in September 2019 and renewed the first concession contract in December 2019

Methodology for measuring postharvest quantity and quality losses

FAO and PIM used the methodology in 11 countries. FAO's 2019 "State of Food and Agriculture" report on food losses used PIM outputs. The methodology was implemented in Ghana through an SNV (Netherlands Development Organisation) project. Results of the methodology are used to inform the UN 2020 Food Systems Summit

Value chain nominal rate of protection methodology

A journal article was published on this