Ending hunger and undernutrition are critical to poverty reduction. In order to achieve these goals, policymakers and stakeholders must look to agriculture. IFPRI and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have been longstanding partners in innovative research focused on sustainable agricultural growth, investment in agricultural research, provision of safety nets to build resilience, nutrition interventions for women and children, property rights, and management of natural resources. Their commitment to tackling hunger and undernutrition paved the way to new findings, seed varieties and evidence-based interventions that now guide efforts around the world towards food and nutrition security.
“Today, thanks to IFPRI and other partners, we now know so much more of what needs to be done to improve agriculture, food security and nutrition.” – Melinda Gates.
One innovative effort resulting from this partnership is HarvestPlus—a program that began in 2004 and uses biofortification (breeding food crops that are rich in micronutrients) to reduce micronutrient malnutrition, such as Vitamin A, in Africa and Asia. Today, 3 million farming households are benefitting from nutritious staple food. In addition, this partnership contributed to IFPRI developing the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) to understand the gender dynamics in agriculture and identify ways to overcome obstacles in women’s involvement in agriculture.
Melinda Gates, Co-Chair and Trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , spoke on the importance of the Foundation’s partnership with IFPRI in a video presented during IFPRI’s 40th Anniversary event.
For more information on the IFPRI and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation collaboration, please go to this booklet.
