Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Mercy Corps, and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) joined forces to bring together researchers, donors, and practitioners in a 1.5-day roundtable to advance a research agenda on financial inclusion and resilience to climate variability.Through the event, key stakeholders took stock of existing evidence, identified important gaps in the evidence, and prioritized open research questions.

While the world works toward the Sustainable Development Goals, important transformations of the agricultural sector will be required to achieve food security, the eradication of poverty and hunger, and sustainable economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. This is particularly true in Ghana, where the agricultural sector contributes 19 percent of GDP and absorbs 45 percent of total national employment.Low productivity in agriculture is strongly associated with poverty: 78 percent of the poor population of Ghana lives in rural areas. These figures indicate that a more competitive and productive agricultural sector can support poverty eradication.