Approaches to Building Food Security Policy Analysis Capacity in Developing Countries: IFPRI and MSU
Event Information
Concerns about environmentally sustainable agriculture, reliable world markets, affordable food prices and effective safety nets for the poor have pushed food security policy back onto the global agenda. Managing these concerns through the combination of the right policies can contribute to the solution. Policy development, based on research and analysis, is a continuous process as conditions change over time. Creating and sustaining food security policy analysis capacity is essential to effective adjustments and reforms.
Michigan State University (MSU) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) have worked for more than two decades in building human and institutional capacity to carry out food security-related research and policy analysis in developing countries – MSU mainly in Africa and IFPRI more globally. Duncan Boughton from MSU, Co-Director of the Food Security III (FS III) Cooperative Agreement, and Paul Dorosh from IFPRI, Director of the Development Strategy and Governance Division, will review lessons learned and discuss future challenges. A panel of experts will compare and contrast the approaches that MSU and IFPRI have taken and assess the outcomes.
Speakers
Paul Dorosh
International Food Policy Research Institute
Paul A. Dorosh is the Division Director of the Development Strategy and Governance Division. He was the Deputy Division Director of IFPRI’s Development Strategy and Governance Division from June 2010 to April 2011. From August 2008 through June 2010, he was an IFPRI Senior Research Fellow and Program Leader of the Ethiopia Strategy Support Program in Addis Ababa. Dorosh worked at the World Bank from March 2003 to August 2008 as a Senior Economist with the Spatial and Local Development Team of the Finance, Economics and Urban Development Unit (2007-08) and Senior Rural Development Economist of the South Asia Rural and Agricultural Development Unit (2003-07). Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked for IFPRI as a research fellow and senior research fellow from 1997 to February 2003, serving as Chief of Party of the Food Management and Research Support Project in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 1997 to 2001. Other affiliations are: Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program in Washington, DC and Ithaca, New York, and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria. He has published research on agricultural markets, food policy, international trade, economy-wide modeling and the rural-urban transformation. He has lived and worked in Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Ethiopia and has also conducted research in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Niger, Madagascar, Mozambique, and various other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and a Masters Degree and Doctorate Degree in Applied Economics from the Food Research Institute, Stanford University, USA.
Duncan Boughton
Michigan State University
Duncan Boughton is a co-Director of the Food Security Group at Michigan State University. He trained at the University of Reading in the UK, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and worked in The Gambia for 5 years as an agricultural economist with the national research program before beginning graduate studies at MSU in 1988. His PhD thesis research was undertaken as part of a collaborative program to build capacity for a new value chain analysis unit within the national agricultural research program of Mali (IER). From 1998 to 2004 he led an MSU team in Mozambique, helping to establish a policy analysis department in the Economics Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and a socio-economic studies unit in the national agricultural research program (IIAM). He continues to work closely with local analysts in Mali and Mozambique on investment priorities to improve food and nutrition security.
Prabhu Pingali
Bill and Melanie Gates Foundation
Prabhu Pingali (NAS) is the Deputy Director of Agricultural Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Formerly, he served as Director of the Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Pingali was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as a Foreign Associate in May 2007, and he was elected Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association in 2006. Pingali was the President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) from 2003-06. Pingali has over twenty five years of experience in assessing the extent and impact of technical change in agriculture in developing countries, including Asia, Africa and Latin America. From 1996-2002 he was Director of the Economics Program at CIMMYT, Mexico. Prior to joining CIMMYT, from 1987 to 1996, he worked as an Agricultural Economist at the International Rice Research Institute at Los Baños, Philippines. Prior to that, he worked from 1982-1987 as an economist at the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department. He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Food Research Institute, and an Affiliate professor at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños. Pingali has authored nine books and over one hundred referred journal articles and book chapters on technological change, productivity growth and resource management issues in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He has received several international awards for his work, including two from the American Agricultural Economics Association: Quality of Research Discovery Award in 1988 and Outstanding Journal Article of the Year (Honorable Mention) in 1995. An Indian national, he earned a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University in 1982.
Julie Howard
USAID Bureau for Food Security
Julie A. Howard is the Chief Scientist in the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Food Security, which leads the implementation of Feed the Future, the U.S. global hunger and food security initiative. She also serves as Senior Advisor to the USAID Administrator on Agricultural Research, Extension and Education. In this role, she oversees the implementation of the Feed the Future research strategy and leads related new programs to advance innovation in global food security efforts, working with both global and national partners. She previously served as Deputy Coordinator for Development for Feed the Future, where she led a core team in elevating interagency engagement in Feed the Future strategic planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Before joining USAID in 2011, she served as the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, an independent nonprofit coalition dedicated to increasing the level and effectiveness of U.S. assistance and private investment through research, dialogue and advocacy. She is also the co-author, with Emmy Simmons, of “Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Assistance in Transforming the Food Security Outlook in Sub-Saharan Africa” in Jennifer Clapp and Marc Cohen, (eds.), The Global Food Crisis: Governance Challenges and Opportunities (2009). Howard served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Repub-lic, and has written on agricultural technology development and transfer, the development of seed and fertilizer systems, and the role of farmer associations in agricultural development in Zambia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Somalia. She holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Michigan State University, and master’s and undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Davis, and The George Washington University.
Daniel Karanja
Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa
Dr. Daniel Karanja is a Senior Fellow and Chief of Staff with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, an independent U.S.-Africa effort focused on increasing the level and effectiveness of U.S. assistance and public-private investments in Africa’s agriculture and rural development. He leads the Partnership’s collaborative work with Washington-based African Ambassadors’ Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD), which includes hosting a series of panel discussions and field visits on key topics of U.S.-Africa interest. In recent years, he has also guided the Partnership’s work on strengthening U.S.-Africa agricultural trade and capacity building, including work related to the U.S. Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Doha’s Aid for Trade. Prior to joining the Partnership in October 2003, he worked as a policy analyst with Bread for the World in Washington, D.C., where his primary focus was on international development and educating U.S. and African NGOs and faith-based organizations on Africa’s agricultural development and the potential of using agricultural biotechnology in Africa. He has a Masters and Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Michigan State University.
Jeff Hill
USAID Bureau for Food Security
Jeff Hill has many years of experience in African agricultural development and currently serves in USAID's recently created Bureau for Food Security (BFS). He started his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone and later served as Associate Peace Corps Director in that country. Prior to USAID, he worked for the World Bank for 10 years in Tanzania and Nigeria. At USAID he has been a team leader for a number of agriculture and food security initiatives for the Africa Bureau and now for BFS. He presently works on Feed the Future initiatives, and prior to that worked on many programs that promoted agricultural growth and built on African-led partnerships to cut hunger and poverty. He has designed, led, and managed a variety of teams on research, private sector development, trade, capacity building and policy. He currently chairs the Donor Development Partners CAADP group and process -- a group of 32 donors worldwide dedicated to African agricultural development. He holds a BS from Weber State University in Utah in public administration and an MS from UC Davis in agricultural economics and agronomy.