IFPRI''s mission focuses on:

• identifying and analyzing alternative international, national, and local policies in support of improved food security and nutrition, emphasizing low-income countries and poor people and the sound management of the natural resource base that supports agriculture;
• contributing to capacity strengthening of people and institutions in developing countries that conduct research on food, agriculture, and nutrition policies; and
• actively engaging in policy communications, making research results available to all those in a position to apply or use them, and carrying out dialogues with those users to link research and policy action.

IFPRI places priority on activities that benefit the greatest number of poor people in greatest need in the developing world. In carrying out its activities, IFPRI seeks to focus on vulnerable groups, as influenced by class, religion, ethnicity, agroecological location, and gender.

IFPRI is committed to providing global food policy knowledge as an international public good; that is, it provides knowledge relevant to decisionmakers both inside and outside the countries in which it undertakes research. New knowledge on how to improve the food security of low-income people in developing countries is expected to result in large social benefits, but in most instances the private sector is unlikely to carry out research to generate such knowledge. IFPRI views both public organizations and the private sector in food systems as objects of study and as partners.

Given the large body of national and international food policy research, IFPRI''s added-value derives from its own cutting-edge research linked with academic excellence in other institutions, such as other CGIAR centers, universities, and other research institutes in the South and the North, and from its application of this knowledge to national and international food policy problems.