For years, CGIAR stakeholders have sought to define the System's comparative advantage (CA). With this concept note, ISDC aims at putting the concept of CA to effective use in research portfolio management at all levels within CGIAR, now that the One CGIAR structure makes portfolio approaches possible and especially salient.

We use a randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh to compare two models of delivering nutrition content jointly to husbands and wives: deploying female nutrition workers versus mostly male agriculture extension workers. Both approaches increased nutrition knowledge of men and women, household and individual diet quality, and women’s empowerment.

It is widely recognized that female farmers have considerably less access to productive assets and support services than male farmers. There is limited evidence of gender gaps in technology adoption and agricultural productivity after accounting for the differential access to factors of production between males and females. This study investigates the gender differences in the adoption of improved technologies and agricultural productivity in Malawi using nationally representative data collected from 1600 households and 5238 plots.

This case study focuses on drought conditions to analyse the early warning, early action and early finance initiatives required to reduce disaster impacts in Kenya. It particularly follows the ongoing multi-season Horn of Africa drought (2014-2022) where Kenya is located. The case study further investigates the effectiveness of governance and institutional arrangements in place, such that socially inclusive systems and processes for responding to climate change can be developed and implemented.

In the face of global pressures of change and biodiversity loss, crop wild relatives (CWR) and wild-utilized species (WUS) urgently require conservation attention. To advance conservation, we assembled a national inventory of CWR and WUS in Canada. To assess current ex situ conservation of these plant species, we gathered a virtual metacollection of accession data from botanical gardens and national genebanks.

CIAT’s financial mandate includes maintaining accountability and transparency in its finances, and to evaluate and communicate direct impact from our work to our donors, partners and the wider research and development community.

A substantial body of research on these important issues comes from a research theme of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) that focused on the governance of natural resources (Flagship 5, or PIM5). Research in Flagship 5 examined the policy and institutional foundations for improved natural resource management. It analyzed how tenure security affects sustain¬able management and how individuals, groups, and communities govern the land, water, fish stocks, and forests.

Agrarian Bangladesh relies heavily on rice. Since independence, many varieties have been released and targeted to increase productivity, farmers' income, and food security. However, few gained widespread adoption. Moreover, farmers in the border regions are adopting exotic cultivars, and it's gradually spreading throughout the country. But, the reasons for adopting exotic rice cultivars are still unexplored.

Countries often lack methods for rapidly, but robustly determining greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation actions and their impacts comprehensively in the land use sector to support commitments to the Paris Agreement. We present rapid assessment methods based on easily available spatial data and adoption costs for mitigation related to crops, livestock and forestry to identify priority locations and actions.