NWO grant of 2 million for Robert Lensink

Professor Robert Lensink has received a NWO grant of 2 milllion for his research project “Improving food and nutrition security by enhancing women’s empowerment”. This project gives new insights in different Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), which were set up by the United Nations. Lensinks research will focus on Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

Food and nutrition security

The empowerment of women affects household food security, the diversity of diets and also the Body Mass Index (BMI) of women themselves. But women's empowerment has many sides and not all of these sides contribute to better nutrition. Within this project, researchers analyze the ways in which women's empowerment can influence food security and contribute to achieving SDG 2: no hunger.

This study is innovative because it provides a new framework for research into the relationship between women's empowerment and food and nutrition security. In addition, this is also the first study in which a combination of conventional economic interventions is tested against newly developed modules that focus on both psychological barriers and gender norms.

Lensink: “I am very much looking forward to cooperate with project partners from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Germany (Passau), and UG/UMCG to help improve food security and women empowerment in developing economies with this multidisciplinary project.”

Together with two other projects that received grants within the NWA (National Science Agenda) programme, Lensink will also participate in the “Knowledge Brokering and Synthesis”project. This cross-programme project aims to synthesize and share the insights gained from the three projects with a wide audience of policy makers, development workers, academics and other relevant stakeholders.

For more information, please contact professor Robert Lensink.