Evidence-Based Research

When it comes to improving global food security and ending hunger, increasing access to reliable, up-to-date information and research is an important first step. National and international policymakers rely on credible data, statistics, and analysis to enact appropriate policies and respond to local, regional, and global food crises. In many developing countries, however, such information is often difficult to access; even when data is available, it may not be communicated to policymakers in an accessible, easy-to-understand way.

On October 11, IFPRI will release the seventh edition of its annual Global Hunger Index (GHI). This year's GHI, titled The Challenge of Hunger: Ensuring Sustainable Food Security Under Land, Water, and Energy Stresses , addresses the issue of sustainable resource use and its importance to feeding a hungry world. The report brings together a series of policy recommendations to address the underlying causes of hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity, with a focus on protecting the world's crucial land, water, and energy resources.

AGRODEP (African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium) has now launched its fourth round of membership extension . Qualified economists from Africa are eligible; membership provides free access to cutting-edge economic research tools, resources, and training that may otherwise be unavailable to researchers in the region.

While progress has stalled in the House of Representatives in recent weeks, the pending new five-year US Farm Bill will have important implications for agriculture. A new paper by Professor Carl Zulauf from the Ohio State University and IFPRI Senior Research Fellow David Orden , published by the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), looks at the competing bills coming out of the Senate and House of Representatives Agriculture Committee in light of their relationship to WTO limits on domestic support.

In economics and development work, experiments are becoming a widely used and accepted research tool. For such experiments to be a useful policymaking tool, however, it is necessary for both researchers and policymakers to have a clear understanding of how the experimental method works and how the results of experiments can be used to inform policy decisions.