The organization of the Nutrition Innovation Labs represents a novel model for focusing U.S.- supported research on food and nutrition issues in developing countries. Their aims are to discover how policy and program interventions can most effectively achieve large-scale improvements in maternal and child nutrition, particularly by leveraging agriculture and build human and institutional capacity for applied policy analysis, research and program implementation. 

The Agribusiness and Market Development (AMDe) project is funded through USAID Ethiopia’s Feed the Future program from June 2011 to May 2016.  It goal is to sustainably reduce poverty and hunger by improving the productivity and competiveness of agricultural value chains that offer jobs and income activities for rural households.

To ensure that Feed the Future impact evaluations are well-conceived, build on existing evidence, and fill critical evidence gaps, the Bureau for Food Security of USAID is supporting a comprehensive assessment of existing evidence and gaps in knowledge for each of six themes covered by the Feed the Future Learning Agenda. This paper summarizes available evidence that relates to key questions for the Feed the Future Learning Agenda theme on improved gender integration and women’s empowerment. 

Africa Lead — Feed the Future’s Building Capacity for African Agricultural Transformation Program — supports the advancement of agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). Africa Lead also contributes to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions — i.e., men and women leaders in agriculture — and the institutions in which they operate to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures, and processes needed for transformation. 

The Women’s Leadership Program in Paraguay is a three-year (2012-2015) higher education partnership between the National University of Asuncion’s School of Agricultural Sciences in Paraguay and the University of Florida (UF) in the United States.The program supports national and local development goals in Paraguay that promote gender equality and female empowerment in the agricultural sector.  

As the world’s most youthful country, it sits on the cusp of being able to harness the youth dividend. Without a more broadly diversified economy, seizing the opportunities presented by Uganda’s youthful demographic will call for understanding both young people, and a focus on the aspects of agriculture that will need to grow and change to meet the challenge. 

Africa Lead II is a program dedicated to supporting and advancing agricultural transformation in Africa as proposed by the African Union Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program. It will also contribute to the Feed the Future goals of reduced hunger and poverty by building the capacity of Champions—defined as men and women leaders in agriculture—to develop, lead, and manage the policies, structures and processes needed for the transformation process.

USAID’s Avansa Agrikultura Project is a horticulture value chain activity aimed at addressing the key challenges of rural poverty, natural resource degradation, food insecurity, and under-nutrition.Through the promotion of sustainable production practices, increased functionality of farmer groups and associations, improved market linkages, and increased availability and access to quality agricultural inputs and services, including access to finance, the project will aim to stimulate and support increased economic activity and growth  for Timorese citizensi

The youth crisis has recently received much attention from the global community, particularly in how it intersects with the future of agriculture. Causes of the youth crisis include univeral youth disinterest in agriculture, deskilled youth populations, lack of access to resources, gender disparity and lack of reliable data regarding youth in agriculture.

The paper is one of a series of research papers that are designed to timely disseminate research and policy analytical outputs generated by the USAID funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy (FSP) and its Associate Awards. The FSP project is managed by the Food Security Group of the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University (MSU), and implemented in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the University of Pretoria (UP).