Developing Leaders and Improving Lives in the World's Developing Countries
Start Date:
Unknown
End Date:
Ongoing
Administrative Unit:
Unspecified.
The Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program (CFNPP), created in 1988 within the Division of Nutritional Sciences, conducts applied research and engages in technical cooperation and training on issues of poverty, human resource development, and food and nutrition policy in developing countries and in transition economies of Eastern Europe. Of particular interest is how the pattern and structure of growth, as mediated by economic policies, affect poverty, health and nutrition. Emphasis is on strengthening the capability of institutions and individuals in developing countries to generate and utilize such knowledge and information. To achieve this goal, CFNPP undertakes research on the effects of government policies on the microeconomy, and its subsequent effects on the poor. In addition, research focuses on the functioning of market and the behavior of various agents, including enterprises, households and individuals, in order to understand how policy change affects welfare and living standards. In the fall of 2001, CFNPP faculty as principal investigators, together with other Cornell faculty, initiated SAGA (Strategies and Analyses for Growth and Access), a six-year, $8 million, USAID-sponsored project for research and technical assistance in Africa, in collaboration with Clark-Atlanta University. The research focuses on four major structural constraints that hold back the African poor: (1) education, (2) health and nutrition, (3) risk, vulnerability and poverty dynamics, and (4) empowerment and institutions. The technical assistance component of SAGA includes grant proposal preparation and review, training courses or workshops on specific topics or methods, and communication and outreach strategies that maximize the probability that research will have an impact on policy. The SAGA project also provides grant support for U.S-based Ph.D. students and faculty in economics, agricultural economics, and other closely related fields to be carried out in selected African countries. CFNPP also has a large collaborative project with the African Economic Research Consortium to provide training and engage in collaborative research on poverty, labor markets and human resource development with African scholars. In Madagascar, CFNPP is involved in a three-year USAID-sponsored project, "Improved Economic Analysis for Decision-Making." CFNPP researchers have partnered with local institutions to conduct collaborative analysis on issues important for economic policy and poverty reduction, and to disseminate these analyses and facilitate public dialogue, policy debates, and decision-making.
No target countries have been selected.
No target regions have been selected.
©2009 Cornell Unversity.