Addressing the intersecting challenges of climate change, conflict and inequality in the MENA region requires more than isolated interventions—it demands coordinated, evidence-driven action. A gender-responsive learning agenda offers a critical opportunity to align research, policy, and practice, amplify women’s voices and invest in solutions that work at scale.
In Southern Africa, a seasonal forecast is more than just a map of probabilities; it is a lifeline for millions of producers.
Poor diets are now the leading global risk factor for chronic disease—and in India, unhealthy diets account for an estimated 56% of the total disease burden. A new policy note from IFPRI, CGIAR’s TAFSSA initiative, and MSSRF unpacks what’s driving India’s cereal-heavy, increasingly ultra-processed diets, and lays out practical, evidence-based actions to shift the food environment—such as front-of-pack labelling, smarter marketing restrictions, nutrition education, and more nutrition-sensitive safety nets like ICDS and PM-POSHAN. This blog was prepared under CGIAR’s Scaling for Impact (S4I) and Better Diets and Nutrition Science programs.
IFPRI and Mercy Corps researchers will share more insights on graduation models in fragile contexts, with reflections from a panel of experts, at a policy seminar on January 21, 2026—both in person at our Washington, D.C. office and online. Join us for the discussion!
Boeng Sneh Lake in Ba Phnom, Prey Veng, Cambodia has reached a major milestone in sustainable water and fisheries management. In late 2025, the District Technical Working Group (DTWG) secured Provincial Department of Water Resources and Meteorology (PDoWRAM) funding to replace the lake’s deteriorated water gate—critical infrastructure for regulating flows, reducing dry-season shortages and wet-season overflow, and easing conflicts between farmers and fishers. Building on inclusive, evidence-based planning and community consultations that boosted lake water retention by 28% in 2024–25, the upgrade signals how local coordination can unlock real government investment and strengthen climate resilience and biodiversity recovery.
In many agricultural markets, the limited ability to measure product quality at the source and trace it through the supply chain remains a key barrier to improvement, as the absence of reliable quality information blunts incentives for upstream actors to invest in better practices