Building resilience in a shifting global landscape

Key result story taken from our 2025 annual technical report.

Shaped agricultural policies and value chains  

The Program’s impact begins at the value chain level, where it provides the empirical backbone for critical decisions. In Kenya, the Program quantified the economic burden of livestock diseases, while in Nigeria and Liberia, it moved national intent toward implementation by operationalizing the aquaculture agenda and the National Seed Development and Certification Agency. In Uganda, spatial analytics and economic modelling empowered the government to prioritize public investments against transboundary banana diseases, protecting a vital food security staple. Across Latin America, high-level dialogues on the future of rice and cassava helped partners align R&D with shifting market dynamics. 

This value-chain focus naturally fed into broader agricultural strategy and input reforms. In Kenya and Bangladesh, the Program informed subsidy frameworks for fertilizer and mechanization, shifting them toward more sustainable, evidence-based models. Policy Innovations also shaped high-level national strategies, such as Odisha’s inclusive agriculture policy and Ethiopia’s national agroecology strategy. 

Informed economic policy for food systems transformation  

Through rigorous economy-wide modelling, the Program provided Kenya’s government with the evidence needed to reconsider a proposed 5% withholding tax, highlighting its potential negative impacts on rural poverty. In Malawi, analysis of the economic fallout from major donor withdrawal directly influenced the assumptions and exchange rate policies within the updated national strategy. To foster evidence-based economic policy making, the Program is also embedding long-term analytical capacity within government institutions; in Malawi, hands-on training has empowered the National Planning Commission to independently conduct policy-relevant scenario analysis. Globally, the Program’s value-chain modeling guided the World Bank’s AgriConnect initiative, while its support in Nepal and Uganda informed their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the COP30 climate negotiations.  

Synergy with development partners like CGIAR is indispensable for achieving sustainable food security.

Hon. Sen. Abubakar Kyari, Minister of Agriculture, Nigeria 

Significant impacts have been witnessed with CGIAR, including policy advice that has led to bold institutional reforms.

H.E. Dr. Fikru Regassa,  Minister for Livestock and Fishery Development, Ethiopia 

Strengthened social policies for protecting the poorest 

The Program has significantly strengthened social safety nets by providing the empirical evidence needed to protect the most vulnerable. In Egypt,rigorous CGIAR impact evaluations for the Ministry of Social Solidarity have optimized the Takaful and Karama cash transfer schemes and the Forsa graduation program, with many countries learning lessons from the Egyptian experience and the World Bank now scaling these insights globally. In Ethiopia, the Program developed new tools and methods to support targeting of social protection and safety net programs. In Kenya, the Program co-generated evidence on the impact of an economic inclusion program together with the Ministry for Labor and Social Protection.  In Sri Lanka, the Program produced the first nationally-representative household survey following the 2022 economic crisis, enabling the Welfare Benefits Board to refine targeting for the Aswesuma National Social Protection program.  

Improved water policies and governance 

The Program is moving water policies and governance from reactive crisis management to proactive systems thinking. At the transboundary level, the Niger Basin Authority adopted the first-of-its-kind Nexus guidance to manage the interconnections between water, energy, and food for 160 million people. National institutional reforms have been equally significant: in Pakistan, sustained advocacy led to the creation of a dedicated Groundwater and Climate Change Division, while in India, the Program informed Uttar Pradesh’s pilot ban on summer rice to combat depletion. Strategic investments are now guided by high-resolution tools like the Water Productivity Atlas and Kenya’s National Irrigation Sector Investment Plan. By fostering collaborative flood risk management in Addis Ababa and mainstreaming gender through the FemiWash Network, the Program ensures that water governance is not only technically robust but also inclusive and resilient.