Virtual Event--Discussion on the Implications of the 2020 Global Food Policy Report for Eurasia

Co-Organized by the Eurasian Center for Food Security at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Westminster International University in Tashkent, the World Bank, & IFPRI

May 27, 2020 - 16:30-18:00 (Tashkent time)

IFPRI’s 2020 Global Food Policy Report was officially launched on April 7 and highlights the critical role that inclusive food systems can play in maintaining food and nutrition security, looking specifically at obstacles and opportunities as well as the tools and technologies necessary for building inclusive food systems.

COVID-19 is having an immense impact on our health and food systems on a global scale, including in the Eurasia region. The coronavirus pandemic has an immediate and long-term effect on poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition levels especially for poor and disadvantaged people in the developing world. Consequently, the need to work towards inclusive food systems is accelerated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Eurasian Center for Food Security at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Westminster International University in Tashkent together with the World Bank and IFPRI, invite interested food and nutrition security professionals to participate on May 27 to learn about the results of the report and to discuss the report and the impact of COVID-19 on food systems in the Eurasia region.

Opening Remarks

• Sergey Shoba, Director, Eurasian Center for Food Security at Lomonosov Moscow State University 
• Renaud Seligmann, World Bank Country Director for the Russian Federation 

Speakers

• Kamiljon Akramov, Senior Research Fellow, Development Strategy and Governance Division, IFPRI
• Johan Swinnen, Director General, IFPRI

Discussants

• Artavazd Hakobyan, Senior Agriculture Economist, World Bank Group 
• Komiljon Karimov, Rector, Westminster International University in Tashkent
• Roman Romashkin,Deputy Director, Eurasian Center for Food Security at Lomonosov Moscow State University
• Vardan Urutyan, Rector, Armenian National Agrarian University 

Moderator

• Rajul Pandya-Lorch,Director, Communications and Public Affairs & Chief of Staff, Director General's Office, IFPRI

Q&A, the participants will be requested to type their questions through the message board, and the moderator will read them.

Recorded webinar and presentations are available at IFPRI`s web site: https://www.ifpri.org/event/virtual-event-discussion-implications-2020-global-food-policy-report-eurasia

Available to download:

• 2020 Global Food Policy Report
• Synopsis: 2020 Global Food Policy Report

COVID-19 and the economy: Challenges and Prospects for Central Asia

June 3, 2020, 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Speaker

Hans Holzhacker - Chief Economist at the CAREC Institute since January 2020. Before joining the CAREC Institute, Hans was for two years Lead economist for Central Asia with the EBRD, based in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Hans has 30 years of experience as an economist focusing on transition economies. Hans was chief economist at Golomt Bank in Mongolia and of ATFBank in Kazakhstan. He was also teaching at the Turan the Narxoz universities in Almaty. Earlier, he was a Vienna-based senior economist focused on Russia and Ukraine for Bank Austria, a member of UniCredit group, and was also in charge of CEE country rating. Hans was Senior Economist covering the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine at the Institute of International Finance in Washington, DC from 1999-2001, Head of Country Risk/Research at GiroCredit Research, Investmentbank Austria, from 1993-99, and Central European Economist at Nomura Research Institute from 1989-93. Hans holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and a Masters in Economics from the University of Vienna, and completed a postgraduate scholarship in the Economics Department of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna.

Discussant

Oybek Yuldashev, WIUT

Moderator

Bakhrom Mirkasimov, WIUT

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/-2k1bAbUXxo

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Hans Holzhacker

Webinar Presentation by Hans Holzhacker

Measurement of Agricultural Policies

June 17, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Prof. Dr. Thomas Herzfeld joined IAMO in October 2011 as Head of the Department Agricultural Policy. He studied agricultural economics at the universities Halle and Kiel, Germany, and Rennes, France. Prof. Dr. Herzfeld obtained his PhD degree in 2004 from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and finalized his Habilitation (venia legend) in 2008 at the same university. From 2007 to 2011, he was employed as an assistant professor at the Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Based on a joint appointment, he teaches at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His research areas focus on Institutional change; Corruption; Microeconometric analyses of rural households and consumers; Agricultural policy analysis; Methodological foci: Panel data analysis, non-parametric methods.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Etenesh B. Asfaw (Center for Policy Research and Outreach (CPRO)/WIUT).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/pQfuXLb29-Y

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Thomas Herzfeld

Food and Nutrition Security under COVID-19 East Asia Experience and Lessons for Central Asia

June 24, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

 Shenggen Fan – Professor at China Agricultural University, Former Director General (2009 - 2019) of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Dr. Fan joined IFPRI in 1995 as a research fellow, conducting extensive research on pro-poor development strategies in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He led IFPRI’s program on public investment before becoming the director of the Institute’s Development Strategy and Governance Division in 2005. He is one of the Champions of Target 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals, dedicated to inspiring ambition, mobilizing action, and accelerating progress toward cutting global food loss and waste. He serves as a member of the Lead Group for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement appointed by the eighth UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. He serves as advisor to many national governments (including China and Vietnam) on agriculture, food security and nutrition. In 2014, Dr. Fan received the Hunger Hero Award from the World Food Programme in recognition of his commitment to and leadership in fighting hunger worldwide. Dr. Fan received his PhD in applied economics from the University of Minnesota and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Nanjing Agricultural University in China.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Ziyodullo Parpiev (WIUT).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/szOENWh8Mhc

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Shenggen Fan

An elusive quest? 25 years of search for the right farming model in post-Soviet Central Asia

July 1, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

 Prof. Dr. Martin Petrick is a professor of agricultural, food and environmental policy at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany, and a Visiting Researcher at the Leibniz-Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) in Halle (Saale). Before he was Deputy Head of the Department Agricultural Policy at IAMO and a professor at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), Germany.

He holds a PhD in agricultural economics from MLU. Major fields of expertise include structural change in agriculture, agricultural transition in former Soviet countries, the evaluation of agricultural policy measures, and public action in rural development.

Prof. Dr. Martin Petrick has worked in senior positions for activities funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council) (DFG), the European Commission, the World Bank, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and other institutions.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Peter Malvicini (CPRO/WIUT).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/p59tXv-P_po

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Martin Petrick

Uzbekistan and the World Trade Organization (WTO) 

July 8, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

 Dr. Richard Pomfret has been Professor of Economics at the University of Adelaide (Australia) since 1992. Before coming to Adelaide, he was Professor of Economics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC, Bologna (Italy) and Nanjing (China). He previously worked at Concordia University in Montréal and the Institut für Weltwirtschaft at the University of Kiel in Germany. He has also held visiting positions at universities in Australia, Canada, China, France, Italy and the USA, and is an honorary Fellow of the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies at the University of Reading, UK, of Monash University European Centre, of the Centre for Social and Economic Research (CASE) in Warsaw, and of the research centre ROSES-CNRS at Université-Paris I. His research interests centre on economic development and international economics, and he has published over a hundred papers in these fields.

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/a2QQ0_7DYiU

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Richard Pomfret

Background Paper by Richard Pomfret

Behavioral Insights for Agri Policy Design

July 15, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Dr. Nodir Djanibekov joined IAMO in August 2012 as a researcher in the Department Agricultural Policy. He obtained his PhD at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Germany. Prior to joining IAMO, he was a researcher in the German-Uzbek development research project on the restructuring of land and water use in Uzbekistan. His main research interests include the issues of land-labor relations, evolution of (in)formal institutions in agriculture, collective action in resource use, agricultural organization and rural transformation in the post-Soviet Central Asian countries.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Kamiljon Akramov (IFPRI).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/5stvlAZjfP0

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Nodir Djanibekov

Agriculture’s contribution to Structural Transformation: Lessons for Central Asian countries

July 22, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

 Dr. Babu was educated at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (M.S. Economics and PhD Economics). Before joining IFPRI in 1992 as a Research Fellow, Dr. Babu was a Research Economist at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Between 1989 and 1994 he spent 5 years in Malawi, Southern Africa on various capacities. He was Senior Food Policy Advisor to the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture on developing a national level Food and Nutrition Information System; an Evaluation Economist for the UNICEF-Malawi working on designing food and nutrition intervention programs; Coordinator of UNICEF/IFPRI food security program in Malawi.

At IFPRI, he has been involved in institutional and human capacity strengthening for higher education and research in many countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, including, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa for the past 23 years. He was IFPRI’s coordinator of its Central Asia program during 1997-2003 and the coordinator of the South Asia Initiative of IFPRI during 2001-2006.

His current research includes human and organizational strengthening of food policy systems, policy processes, and agricultural extension in developing countries.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Nodir Djanibekov (IAMO).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/xWt3PZ0mXxg

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Suresh Babu

Background Paper by Suresh Babu

Discussion of presentation by Nodir Djanibekov

Agriculture-nutrition linkages in Tajikistan: Selected insights from recent IFPRI studies

July 29, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

 Hiroyuki Takeshima joined IFPRI Nigeria office in January 2009, and joined IFPRI Washington Office in 2012. His research has focused on agricultural technology adoption including varietal technologies and mechanization, farm-nonfarm linkages, agricultural transformation and rural economic transformation, public and private investments, and agriculture-nutrition linkages. His research covers Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. Hiroyuki is one of the editors of the book “The Nigerian Rice Economy: Policy Options for Transforming Production, Marketing, and Trade” published in 2016. Hiroyuki is also the 2018 recipient of the Nils Westermarck Award of the International Association of Agricultural Economics. Hiroyuki obtained a Ph.D. in Agriculture & Consumer Economics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Hiroyuki is a citizen of Japan.

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/bK3BmzG8FQw

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Hiroyuki Takeshima

Background Paper 1 by Hiroyuki Takeshima

Background Paper 2 by Hiroyuki Takeshima

The long shadow of history and the Kazakh famine of 1931-1933: evidence from anthropometric data

August 5, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Charles Becker is interested in exploring the economies of such countries as Kazakhstan, India, sub-Saharan Africa, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. His research has focused on economic demography, social security system forecasting, CGE modeling, mortality and disability risk, determinants of health care utilization, computable general equilibrium simulation modeling, and urban economics. His on-going projects involve assessing infant mortality rates, poverty in developing countries, accidental deaths in middle-income countries, and the performance of minority students in Economics doctoral programs. He recently worked with Irina Merkuryeva on a project investigating, “Disability Risk and Miraculous Recoveries in Russia,” and with Rebecca Anthopolos on, “Gobal Infant Mortality: Initial results from a cross-country infant mortality comparison project.” He also collaborated with Grigory Marchenko, Sabit Khakimzhanov, Ai-Gul Seitenova, and Vladimir Ivliev on a project entitled, “Social Secutiry Reform in Transition Economies: Lessons from Kazakhstan,” and with Amitava Krishna Dutt and Jaime Ros on, “Urbanization and Rural-Urban Migration.”

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Nargiza Alimukhamedova (WIUT/CERGE-EI).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/WmdMmwsSZ14

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Charles Becker

The policy of agricultural land allotment to households and its impact on productivity and household welfare in Tajikistan 

August 12, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Kamiljon Akramov is a Senior Research Fellow at Development Strategy & Governance Division. He conducts research on governance and development policy issues using applied econometric analysis. His focus is on aid effectiveness, institutional change, agricultural growth and food security in Central Asia, decentralization and efficiency of service delivery in transition and developing countries.

Prior to joining IFPRI, Dr. Akramov was a Doctoral Fellow at Pardee RAND Graduate School (where he obtained his Ph.D in Economic Policy Analysis), a consultant for Asian Development Bank on governance and regional cooperation, and Director of the Monetary Policy Research Center at the Central Bank of Uzbekistan. He also has a Master’s Degree in Development Economics from Williams College, USA.

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/q4GM8xTBp10

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Kamiljon Akramov

Gender Earnings Inequality and Wage Policy: Teachers, Health Care and Social Workers in Kyrgyzstan 

August 19, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Kathryn Anderson - Director, Graduate Program in Economic Development (Vanderbilt University). Professor Anderson is a labor economist whose research explores the consequences of the economic transition on households in Central Asia. Her research examined changes in living standards and poverty, education and health, and employment from 1993 to the present. Her most recent research examines gender gaps in employment and wages following the 2010 Revolution and the impact of the large out-migration on the human capital development of children. Professor Anderson is a research associate for: the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany (IZA); CASE, Warsaw, Poland; and the Institute for Policy and Public Administration, University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She served on the Board of Trust for the Southern Economic Association, the Association of Comparative Economic Studies, and the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). She was Vice President for the Southern Economic Association, 2006-2008.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Rauf Salahodjaev (CPRO/WIUT).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/9fpN1NLKBKY

Link to background paper

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Kathryn Anderson

Agricultural insurance markets: From index design to farmers‘ adoption 

August 26, 2020 at 16:30-17:30 (Tashkent time)

Dr. Ihtiyor Bobojonov joined IAMO in October 2012 as a research associate in the Department Agricultural Markets. He studied agricultural economics at the University of Bonn, Germany. He wrote his PhD thesis in the framework of a project of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) about modeling crop and water allocation under uncertainty in irrigated agriculture in Uzbekistan. He was honored with a prize for the best Doctoral Thesis between January 2007 and May 2009 at the ZEF. Dr. Bobojonov works on several projects related to the mobilization of agricultural market potentials in Commonwealth of Independent States countries. He mainly carries out research on the impact of supply chain transformation on the welfare of agricultural producers. Furthermore, he investigates the role of agricultural insurance in agricultural sector development, and analyzes possible options to improve the performance of insurance markets. He is coordinator of the International Agricultural Economics Chair at the Tashkent State Agrarian University and co-coordinator of the Insurance Lab at the Tashkent State Economic University.

The webinar was moderated by Bakhrom Mirkasimov (WIUT) and discussed by Jarilkasin Ilyasov (IFPRI).

Recorded webinar is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/JzGHHB9hWZg

Available to download:

Webinar Presentation by Ihtiyor Bobojonov