50th Anniversary Impact Assessment Report: Highlights of how IFPRI research has shaped global food policy
First in a series of blog posts reviewing IFPRI’s work and its impacts over a half-century.
- impact evaluation
First in a series of blog posts reviewing IFPRI’s work and its impacts over a half-century.
As IFPRI marks its 50th anniversary, the Institute and its key stakeholders pause to take stock of what we know about its policy influence and impact over the years. What does the available evidence tell us about IFPRI’s achievements as an international research institution? Have its activities contributed to better policy and investment decisions by governments, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and others involved in the economic and social development of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)?
To answer these questions, we reviewed a wealth of available external evidence about IFPRI’s performance, comprising bibliometric data and 45 independent assessments commissioned by IFPRI, its partners, or investors over the past 30 years. While some of these assessments lack scientific rigor and must be viewed with some caution, they reflect the independent judgments of external experts, based on careful study of the available evidence. As the report only relies on independent assessments, it does not include very recent impacts, such as the influence of IFPRI’s country-level and global analyses of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.