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 Pandora's Box: A New Model for Education in Asia
2006-01
In Asia, distance education using information and communication technologies is proving to be an efficient way of delivering high-quality education. And by making higher education affordable and accessible, it is helping to address equity issues. 
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 WTO Accession: Tough Love or a Heavy Hand?
2005-12-13
Thirty-one countries from war-torn Afghanistan to Yemen are queued for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The reasons officials give for staying in the queue range from improved market access for their exports to the positive signal — a seal of approval really — that WTO membership sends to the global trading and investment community.
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 Come Together: African Universities Collaborate to Improve Bandwidth
2005-12
African universities pay dramatically more for Internet access than comparable institutions on other continents. To help increase the flow of information, participants at the Conference on African Research and Education Networking and Infrastructure, held 14 and 15 November 2005 in Tunisia, developed a multifaceted approach for collaboration.
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 “How Will It Help Veronica?…”
2005-12
During my trip to Uganda, one individual stayed with me throughout my travels, so much so, that “How will it help Veronica?” became a mantra for the trip. — ICT4D Director, Richard Fuchs.
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 Onno the Liberator
2005-10-18
Onno Purbo has been described as an Internet activist, an information and communication technology (ICT) evangelist, and now liberator. His mission: to transform Indonesia into a knowledge-based society and its people into knowledge producers by tirelessly promoting low-cost, build-your-own, community-based ICT networks.
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 Work in Progress — Rural Pondicherry's Wireless Internet
2005-10-06
A award winning project to provide high-speed wireless telephone and Internet access to villagers in southern India has also wrought social change in the past five years. Self-help and microfinance groups, for instance, have been formed to share the information garnered on the Internet. Farmers and other producers stay informed about market prices. And the information flows back to the cities, improving government services. Key is the villagers ability to adapt the technologies and the information it brings to their own purposes. As the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation is discovering, new information can change lives.
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 A Robin Hood for the Digital Age
2005-10-06
The Rede de informaçãoes para o terceiro setor (RITS), a nonprofit organization based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been working since 1997 to make computer technology and its powerful communication tools available to the poorest sectors of the population. It also wants to modernize civil society organizations and enable them to share information widely. And it's doing just that using such means as a Web portal, a "webzine," and a directory of organizations.
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 The Heredia Rules: A New Route for Protecting Privacy in Online Judicial Information
2005-10-06
What is a boon for many lawyers is also proving to be a liability for some individuals in Latin America. Judicial decisions are now being published, full-text on the Internet, making them easy to access and helping to open up the legal system in Latin America. The problem is that sensitive information about people’s private lives also ends up online. To address this issue, researchers, judges, and representatives from civil society as well as from the private sector met in Heredia, Costa Rica to develop voluntary guides for judicial bodies in the region to follow when putting information on the Internet. Known as the Heredia Rules, these guidelines are helping to strike a balance between judicial transparency and the protection of personal information.
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 Cultivating Research in a War-ravaged City
2005-09-12
The Kingtom Bomeh municipal dump site in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, is a post-apocalyptic landscape. But amid the skeletons of rusted-out cars and piles of burning trash Yebu Sesay is expanding her vegetable garden. Researchers supported by IDRC are now studying urban agriculture practices in Freetown. The goal: improve sustainability and productivity.
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 Technology and Language: Learning to Say Mouse in K’iche’
2005-08
Thousands of children in Guatemala’s rural highlands are using computers to learn to read and write in their native Mayan language of K’iche', thanks to a local NGO’s support of intercultural/bilingual education and educational technology.
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 Learning Lessons from Traditional Leaders in Ghana
2005-06-06
In Ghana, traditional leaders are at the forefront in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. Chiefs and queen mothers are regaining their authority and assuming active roles as partners in development, working to alleviate the social, economic, and health consequences of AIDS in their communities.
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 Global Approaches to Urban Wastewater Use in Irrigated Agriculture
2005-05-27
Although a common and often ancient practice, the use of urban wastewater — often untreated or inadequately treated — in irrigated agriculture is receiving fresh attention because of the increasing scarcity of clean water resources and the growing volumes of urban wastewater in developing countries. It is estimated that more than 20 million hectares in 50 countries are currently irrigated with urban wastewater and up to one-tenth of the world’s population eats food produced using wastewater. A major concern raised by all contributors to a new book, Wastewater Use in Irrigated Agriculture: Confronting the Livelihood and Environmental Realities, is the need to balance the public health impacts on consumers with that of farmers to increase their livelihoods by using wastewater to grow crops. Case studies demonstrate the wide range of wastewater use practices.
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 Addressing Barriers to Empowering Women: A South Asian Perspective
2005-05-13
Ten years after the UN’s World Conference on Women in Beijing, women’s movements around the world have made progress in securing women’s basic human rights. However, notes Ratna Kapur, Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal Research in New Delhi, violence against women remains an enormous problem.
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 Building a Fisheries Research Network
2005-04-04
In the early 1980s, the fishing industry in many Southeast Asian countries was in serious trouble. At the same time, much of the scientific research being carried out on these issues was primarily biological in nature, even while people were starting to recognize that the real solutions were social, economic, political, and institutional in nature. The Asian Fisheries Social Science Research Network (AFSSRN) was launched to address this issue. As a result, nowadays social scientists and economists also study the fishers as well as the fish. Their recommendations are proving very useful to policymakers in Southeast Asia as they seek to ensure sustainable management of the regions fishing grounds.
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 Engendering Macroeconomic Policies
2005-03-07
Is macroeconomic analysis gender-neutral? Many economists and others think not. Nilufer Cagatay is helping to train senior economists to consider gender in their approach to macroeconomics and international economic policy.
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 Brain Drain and Capacity Building in Africa
2005-02-22
“In 25 years, Africa will be empty of brains.” That dire warning, from Dr Lalla Ben Barka of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), reflects the growing alarm over Africa’s increasing exodus of human capital. Data on brain drain in Africa is scarce and inconsistent; however, statistics show a continent losing the very people it needs most for economic, social, scientific, and technological progress.
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 Development Takes on a Face and an Address in the Philippines
2005-02-01
“Waiting for something,” reads the sign above the small waiting shed on the side of the dusty road that cuts through a baranguay (village) in the municipality of Coron on Busuanga Island, in the Philippine province of Palawan. “Waiting for nothing,” reads another a kilometre or so down the road. These two signs may well describe the feelings of many Palawanos, indeed of many Filipinos. Optimism, because of the national government’s commitment since the late 1980s to reduce poverty. Pessimism because, as Celia Reyes of the Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI) at De La Salle University says, “the performance of the Philippines with respect to poverty reduction has been very modest. While the incidence of poverty has declined over the past 15 years, the number of poor has actually increased.”
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 Colombia’s Laptop Warrior — Connectivity for Peace and Progress
2005-01-31
Vilma Almendra is part of a growing movement to use Internet communications as an antidote to violence against Indigenous peoples. She says that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are playing a key role in denouncing human rights abuses in Colombia.
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 Putting Guatemala's Justice System on Trial
2004-12-03
Justice officials, human rights defenders, and experts from other Latin American countries are monitoring Guatemala’s criminal justice system for the "Justice Observatory," an IDRC-supported research project.
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 Palestinian Researchers Apply Evaluation Lessons to Land Use Project
2004-11-04
The Palestinian people face the triple challenge of negotiating a just peace, building a viable state, and laying the foundations for sustainable development — all under adverse conditions. Over the past two years, researchers from the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ) have attended the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) in Ottawa. The training has provided triple benefits, strengthening research in land use, building evaluation capacity within ARIJ, and planting the seeds for an evaluation network involving Middle Eastern countries.
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 Learning Online and On the Job in Mexico
2004-10-21
In 1993, the Mexican government embarked on an ambitious program to reform its public administration. The goal: to build a professional, stable, and nonpartisan public service. Part of its efforts is to offer training courses in good government, management, and technical areas to public servants. The courses will be delivered online, through a new portal — @Campus Mexico — launched on October 20. Canadian experience in Internet and Web-enabled technologies and online learning to improve public administration helped shape the new portal. The Institute for Connectivity in the Americas and Canada’s International Development Research Centre supported @Campus Mexico’s development.
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 Casting CurriculumNet Wider
2004-09-20
An Internet-based learning project in Uganda is bearing fruit — and may soon send new shoots south, to Rwanda. In March 2004, Kiddhu Makubuya, Uganda’s Minister for Education and Sports, and Professor Romain Murenzi, Rwanda’s Minister for Education, Science, Technology, and Scientific Research, headed a delegation to see the launch and demonstration of CurriculumNet’s content and materials at Uganda’s National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) in Kampala. CurriculumNet is using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide instructors with multi-media materials they can use to teach their classes.
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 Taming the Wounded Lion: Transforming Security Forces in West Africa
2004-09-07
Coups and conflict have been a sad part of life for millions of West Africans over the past four decades. With the arrival of fragile democracies, new civilian governments are replacing military rule but often the two parties do not know how to talk to each other. The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a nongovernmental organization that aims to promote the values of democracy, peace, and human rights in Africa, has just published a 176-page handbook on security sector transformation. The Governance in the Security Sector Handbook is designed to provide military, government, and civil society throughout Africa with a holistic tool to analyze and choose alternatives.
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 Liquid Manna? Treating Urban Wastewater for Local Gardening
2004-08-13
Researchers in Senegal have been experimenting with a biological method of treating water that involves lagoons and pista stratiotes, otherwise known as water lettuce. The resulting water is safer to use for agriculture, flower growing, composting of household refuse, or for watering tree nurseries. It is proving to be “liquid manna” for urban farmers in two poor neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Dakar.
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 Trade Liberalization: Poverty’s friend or foe?
2004-07-30
Freer trade is supposed to be good for economic growth but does it do anything to reduce poverty? An eight-country study sheds light on the effects of liberalized trade on the poor and provides policymakers with a tool to help them extend the benefits from liberalized trade more broadly.
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 A Better Brew: Toward a sustainable coffee industry
2004-07-30
The global coffee industry is in freefall, imperilling the livelihoods of millions of farm families. An initiative to use market forces to make coffee supply chains more sustainable holds promise for small-scale coffee producers and other commodity markets.
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 A Business Case for Social Responsibility in Mining Operations
2004-07-09
The mining firm that wins the auction to develop the Las Bambas copper deposit in Peru (slated to be chosen on 23 July) had “better be prepared to show the families [living there], the community, the neighbouring communities, and the country that the net impact of that mine's life — from exploration to post-closure — is positive for them, for their environment, and for their economy,” warned Paul A. Warner, director of Community Relations and Institutional Affairs for giant Australian mining company BHP Billiton.
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 Making Mining Work: Bringing poverty-stricken, small-scale miners into the formal private sector
2004-07-09
Digging for precious minerals in precarious, often unhealthy conditions, without safety equipment, proper tools, or recognition from the state is a way of life for about 13 million of the world’s poorest people engaged in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Ten years ago, governments and multilateral institutions operated in the hope that ASM would disappear, but it is now painfully clear that ASM is a reality that must be faced head-on, according to Mining Policy Research Initiative (MPRI) director Cristina Echavarría.
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 Happiness and Progress: Measuring Human Wellbeing in Bhutan and Canada
2004-06-17
The country of Bhutan wants to safeguard its social values by entrenching them in terms that the wider world can understand and respect, that is to say, in new measures of progress. The country is following through on the 1972 declaration made by His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wangchuck: “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product.” To this end, the Bhutanese are striving to develop a comprehensive set of social, environmental, and health indicators that can accurately represent human wellbeing.
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 Solving the Water Crisis: Increase Supplies or Improve Management?
2004-06-03
Large-scale, centralized water management has gone about as far as it can in many regions. There are no more big rivers to dam; aquifers are being mined to exhaustion; vast irrigation schemes have reached their limits. The second option — better managing existing supplies — holds greater promise. Thirty years of research shows that community-based or local water management could play a large role in efforts to supply clean water to all.
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 Using Video to Settle Land Disputes in Lebanon
2004-04-30
In Lebanon’s sparsely settled highlands, a long-time Arab method for settling disputes has taken a decidedly technological twist, as video cameras help the traditional majlis council structure do its work. The cameras helped facilitate dialogue between groups embroiled in a longstanding land dispute in Arsaal — an important step for developing a workable approach to managing the region’s fragile natural resources.
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 The Challenge of Achieving Health Equity in Africa
2004-04-07
Equity in health implies addressing differences in health status that are unnecessary, avoidable, and unfair, says the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET). The network addresses three dimensions of equity: in access to health resources, access to social and economic resources, and access to power. It does so by sharing information and by carrying out research. The goal is to build regional capacity and foster equitable health policies. This work is crucial, says EQUINET coordinator Dr Rene Loewenson, as inequities are increasing in Africa.
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 Applying Lessons in Evaluation
2004-02-26
IDRC sponsored 11 people from organizations in Palestine, Jamaica, Senegal, Mexico, Ecuador, and Uruguay to attend the third annual International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) in Ottawa. Researchers are now applying the skills they learned to their work in the field. Hosted by the World Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department and Carleton University’s Faculty of Public Affairs and Management, IPDET attracted 187 participants from 57 developed and developing countries — an increase of 15% from the previous year.
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 Biodiversity and Health: Are we killing the plants that can cure?
2004-02-13
In October 2003, scientists, researchers, pharmacists, traditional healers, policymakers, and representatives of the academic and business worlds met in Ottawa, Canada, to take part in an International Symposium on Biodiversity and Health. It was the first time such a disparate group from both North and South came together to examine issues surrounding the use and conservation of medicinal plants and the practice of traditional medicine. What follows is a summary of the presentations and discussions at the three-day symposium. The event was organized by Tropical Conservancy, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to protecting and conserving species, habitats, and the environment throughout the world. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) was one of the co-sponsors of the event.
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 Kenyan Farmers Discover the Internet
2004-01-29
A project called DrumNet in Kenya brings hope to rural farmers who have long been exploited by brokers and resellers. The smallholder producers can now depend on DrumNet's services to track market prices and make better-informed decisions about the sale of their produce. Additional services are planned to help improve farmers' productivity and incomes.
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 Urban Agriculture Reaches New Heights Through Rooftop Gardening
2004-01-22
A form of urban gardening increasingly practiced by some of the world’s poorest farmers is being adapted to the rooftops of Montreal. The Canadian development organization Alternatives, working with Mexican and Moroccan researchers, is developing a simplified hydroponics system, using recycled materials, organic inputs, and manual labour to produce crops. The technique uses as little as 10% of the water needed for conventional gardening, helps clean air and groundwater, and saves energy normally used to transport food from rural to urban areas.
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 India Mainstreams Medicinal Plants
2004-01-08
A new Indian government program to bring medicinal plants into the country’s medical and livelihood mainstreams should put money into the pockets of the villagers who collect them, while making the plants safer to use. The effort marks a shift away from viewing India’s forests as timber stock, to seeing them as sources for a medicinal plant industry.
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 Digital Solidarity, Key to Africa’s Development — Interview with Mr Abdoulaye Wade, President of Senegal
2003-12-11
In Dakar, on December 2, 2003, His Excellency Mr Abdoulaye Wade, President of the Republic of Senegal, accorded Senegalese journalist Mame Less Camara an exclusive interview on behalf of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Mr Wade is coordinator of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) aspect of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The interview took place on the eve of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held December 9 to 12. President Wade considers the new technologies one of NEPAD’s eight priority sectors. In fact, he says, the new technologies “have shown the way for giving concrete application to NEPAD in partnership with developed countries.”
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 Food Security — Seeds of Threat, Seeds of Solutions
2003-11-27
Over the past few decades, plant breeders have developed new high-yielding cereal varieties. This very success, however, could lead to a gradual loss of plant species, threatening the world’s future food security. Only the help of small farmers in remote areas of the world who have benefited little if at all from the advances in plant breeding can overcome this threat.
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 In Conversation: Venàncio Massingue
2003-11-17
A pioneer of the digital age in Africa, Dr Venàncio Massingue, Vice-Rector of the University Eduardo Mondlane (UEM), was a key player in bringing the Internet to Mozambique. From 1996 to 1998 he masterminded the development of the Mozambique ICT Policy and ICT Strategy that were approved by the Cabinet in 2000 and 2002 respectively. He emphasizes and supports the role of young people in his goal of making Mozambique a producer, not just a consumer, of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Dr Massingue spoke to IDRC Reports about his experience and the role of ICTs in development.
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 Resource Management Goes Wireless in Mozambique
2003-11-17
Mozambique’s forest wardens and wildlife scouts have a new tool with which to fight illegal loggers and poachers: wireless radio telephones. The phones are also helping to break their isolation. In addition, research supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is showing that the radios help to enlist villagers to the cause of sound resource management. Local and provincial governments profit in turn from the additional fines levied on illegal loggers.
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 Computers Live On In Colombian Classrooms
2003-11-17
Donated computers are making school much more interesting for more than 750 000 students in Colombia and are allowing students from technical colleges to gain valuable work experience. The program — similar to Canada’s Computers for Schools — is also helping teachers learn how to use computers and the Internet as educational tools. Key to the success of this project, supported by the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA), is political will — Computadores para Educar (CPE) enjoys presidential support.
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 Net Gains With Somos@Telecentros
2003-11-17
Telecentres — community Internet access points — can help marginal groups in society to use the Internet to organize and influence wider thinking on the kinds of national policies, regulations, and human rights issues that affect them. This is the experience of Somos@Telecentros in Ecuador, launched in 1999 as a way to build regional and national communities through the Internet. Today it has about 1750 members in eight countries who share experiences and resources. The network also gives them a collective voice that enhances their participation and their influence in the discussion and formulation of broader public policies.
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 The Best Policy: Telcom Research from an African Perspective
2003-11-17
Information and communication technologies (ICTS) offer tantalizing possibilities for supporting — even hastening — Africa's economic and social development. Whether or not this potential is reached depends to a great extent on telecommunications policies. These policies cannot simply be imported: they must be based on an understanding of African realities. The aim of the Learning Information Networking Knowledge (LINK) Centre is to promote "made in Africa" research that will contribute to a "made in Africa" information revolution.
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 What Determines ICT Access in the Philippines?
2003-11-17
As an archipelago of 7000 islands, the Philippines faces major communication challenges. The country also has pressing development needs. The government has introduced several policies to broaden people's access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) as a way to meet these needs. But Erwin Alamapy found that even though people are close to ICTs, they don't always use them. His research project set out to find out why, and what could be done to encourage the use of new technologies.
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 A Cyber Shepherd at Work in the Sahel
2003-11-17
How can the pastoralists in the Sahel be helped to adopt more productive livestock management practices and to protect pastures that are threatened by drought and overgrazing? African researchers addressing this question have come up with an innovative answer — putting new information and communication technologies (ICTs) to work for herders. One result: a Web site named "cyber shepherd."
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 Telecentres: From Idea to Reality in Mozambique
2003-11-17
What should a telecentre look like? In Mozambique, researchers from the University Eduardo Mondlane turned to the community for an answer. The result was a one-stop shop with everything from telephones and photocopying services to computer training. The project is having spillover effects as women's organizations avail themselves of some of the services offered. But although the telecentres are valued by the communities, their future remains uncertain due to the high cost of Internet and the need to become self-sustainable.
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 Tools for Educational Change
2003-11-17
SchoolNet Mozambique is a nationwide network to enhance learning opportunities for students, teachers, and the surrounding community via the Internet. Decision makers have high hopes that it can redress some of the problems endemic to Mozambique's education system, such as inequity in access to education, especially between urban and rural dwellers. Supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), SchoolNet is also seen as a way to prepare Mozambican students for work in the Global Information Society. Ultimately, however, SchoolNet may be the catalyst for systemic change in the way teachers teach and students learn.
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 Laos: A Final Frontier for ICTs
2003-11-17
A report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on "e readiness," published in 2001, outlines many problems that limit the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development in Laos. These include limited infrastructure and a lack of ICT knowledge. A project on building digital links, supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is helping to build capacity within the government and at the community level to meet Laos' ICT needs.
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 New Wireless Network for Uganda's Healthcare Workers
2003-11-17
The introduction of cellular telephony has revolutionized Uganda's communication industry, increasing national teledensity by 350% since the first network went live in early 1995. Now the networks that brought remote villages their first voice connectivity are opening new doors for the delivery of health care.
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 In Conversation: Shafika Isaacs on Transforming Education in Africa
2003-11-17
Shafika Isaacs is executive director of SchoolNet Africa. An African nongovernmental organization (NGO), SchoolNet Africa uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) in schools to improve the quality, accessibility, and efficiency of education. It works with learners, teachers, policymakers, and practitioners, largely through national schoolnet organizations. Isaacs spoke to Reports magazine about her vision for using ICTs to fundamentally change Africa's education system. Africa is experiencing an education crisis because of the large number of children who lack access to good quality, basic education.
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 Boosting Tourism in South Africa’s Townships
2003-11-17
Cape Town is one of Africa's top tourist meccas as visitors come to enjoy the natural beauty of Table Mountain, the wine lands and white sandy beaches. But Cape Town is a tale of two cities. Not far from the modern skyscrapers and first world luxuries, lie the sprawling, impoverished townships of the Cape Flats. Townships are not just about poverty, though, as foreign tourists are learning. They are communities rich in cultural and ethnic heritages; and for those looking for something a little different, largely undiscovered. As part of a research project undertaken by the University of the Western Cape, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is assessing the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on small, medium, and micro enterprises and how these could be incorporated into the burgeoning tourism industry in the Cape Flats.
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 Making Plans for Success — The Tanzania Essential Health Interventions Project
2003-10-30
Fewer children are dying in Morogoro District in Tanzania — the result of significant improvements in local health care. Morogoro is one of two districts that are the testing ground for the Tanzania Essential Health Interventions Project (TEHIP). This research and development partnership between the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Tanzania Ministry of Health has been piloting innovations in health planning, priority setting, and resource allocation. As the successful project comes to an end, the Tanzanian government is now taking steps to apply TEHIP’s lessons to the rest of the country.
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 Turning the Tide of Violence in South Africa
2003-10-23
The root cause of violence in South Africa has not changed much since the apartheid era. According to the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), South Africa’s current high rate of violent crime is just as related to economic and social marginalization as it was during the 1980s. In an effort to develop strategies to turn the tide of violence, CSVR has been analyzing the causes, extent, and the sustained pattern of violence in South Africa as it moved to democracy.
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 Seeds of Survival
2003-10-02
Local control over food production has become the rallying point for the Deccan Development Society and a group of like-minded organizations that make up the South Asian Network of Food, Ecology, and Culture (SANFEC). Since its inception in 1996, SANFEC has argued for its concerns at national, regional, and international forums such as the World Food Summit, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
In what was dubbed a farmer-to-farmer dialogue, a group of South Asian small-scale farmers from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka shared their experiences and the challenges they face with Canadian organic farmers from British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The 10-day program of tours of organic farms, presentations, and a workshop culminated in the drafting of an alternative vision for the future of agriculture.
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 In Conversation: Carol Weiss and Evert Lindquist on Policymaking and Research
2003-09-11
It seems logical to suggest that public policies would be better constructed if policymakers had access to the best research. Yet all too often, researchers and policymakers inhabit separate spheres — the work of the two does not connect. These are the views of Professor Carol Weiss of Harvard University and Professor Evert Lindquist of the University of Victoria. Professor Weiss has written 11 books and over 100 articles on evaluation and public policy research and ran Harvard's postdoctoral program on evaluation. Professor Lindquist is director of the University of Victoria's School of Public Administration and has written extensively on the machinery of government and policy-making, policy communities and networks, and the role of think tanks.
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 From Forests to Fields in Côte d’Ivoire
2003-08-12
What happens when policies and programs to promote economic growth unexpectedly wreak havoc with the environment and people’s health? In Côte d’Ivoire, researchers are looking at ways to reduce the harmful health impacts of unbridled agricultural development and of a large hydroelectric dam. But rather than focusing on health services, they are trying to improve people’s health by better managing the local resource base.
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 Taking Control of Air Pollution in Mexico City
2003-08-12
Located in a pollutant-trapping valley, Mexico City — one of the world’s largest cities — has had limited success in battling suffocating air pollution. A new understanding of the health impacts of this pollution – and of people’s role in both the problem and the solution – could lead to better targeted, more effective air improvement programs.
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 A Golden Opportunity for Better Health
2003-08-12
Gold has been mined for centuries in the hills of southwestern Ecuador. Today, the mining is small-scale but the problems it brings are large — unsafe conditions, environmental contamination, and harm to human health. Researchers are studying the impact of mining activities in several communities along the Puyango River. They have found that the effects extend beyond the immediate area to farming families living downstream. Two communities are now taking steps to address the problem.
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 Cause and Solution: A New Perspective on Malaria and Agriculture
2003-08-12
Malaria is thought to have emerged as a virulant disease at the same time as the early practice of agriculture — about 7,000 years ago. Today, a project by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is taking a new look at the links between agriculture and malaria. The goal is to reduce the incidence of the disease.
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 Healthy Collaboration Cleans up Kathmandu
2003-08-12
An entrenched system of social organization, environmental degradation, and poverty have conspired to create a public health crisis in Kathmandu. Waterborne and helminthic diseases are rampant, as are respiratory and digestive illnesses. But the situation is improving dramatically for the city's poor, thanks to a unique collaboration between Nepalese and Canadian researchers and the work of a local nongovernmental organization.
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 Gender Researcher Seeks Answers on South African Campuses
2003-07-21
In South Africa, post-secondary education is one of only a few tickets to upward mobility, and students endure enormous economic and personal pressures to graduate. Succeeding on campus means facing powerfully entrenched ideas tied to gender and heterosexuality, according to Dr Jane Bennett, gender researcher and director of the African Gender Institute, based at the University of Cape Town. She’s urging much more work be undertaken on gender equity and gender violence in a specifically African context.
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 Circle of Life: Organic Farming in Mexico
2003-07-04
Every two weeks in Guadalajara, in Jalisco State, Mexico, perhaps half a dozen farm producers retail organic foods and household cleaners at a tiny community market, in a friendly participant’s yard. The market is based on old Mexico’s tíanguis, indigenous marketplaces where people exchanged food and ideas. It’s a way to create a direct link between farmers who produce organic vegetables, milk, meat, and eggs, and their buyers.
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 Improving Morocco’s olive industry, from harvest to waste disposal
2003-05-16
Simple techniques and appropriate technologies developed at Morocco’s Institut Agricole et Vétérinaire Hassan II could solve two major problems facing Morocco’s olive oil industry: how to improve processing and produce higher quality oil, and how to dispose of polluting wastes. At the same time, they can yield animal feeds and natural aromas for the food and pharmaceutical industries. These new developments could contribute to a sustainable source of income and employment in rural areas, as well as help achieve Morocco’s national plan to expand and improve the olive industry.
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 Collecting Fog on El Tofo
2003-05-02
In the early 1990s, the global news media became entranced by a small town in northern Chile that was using a new and innovative technology to draw much-needed water from fog. The technology worked well and the increased water supply helped to transform the town. But, more than 10 years later, the mesh nets of the fog catchers are in a state of total disrepair. What caused the community to abandon the project that had brought it abundant water and high hopes for the future? And what can be learned from the El Tofo experience?
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 Protecting Mongolia’s grassland steppes
2003-04-04
Overgrazing and global climate changes, along with political upheavals, are causing serious ecological problems in the windy grassland steppes of Mongolia — and threatening the livelihood of more than half the population who make a living herding livestock. A research project is currently underway which aims to help communities manage their grasslands and natural resources sustainably by working directly with those most affected. The project is examining issues such as herd mobility versus continuous grazing on the same pastureland; the shift from state control to a market-oriented system; and the privatization of resources such as land.
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 Water Management in Ecuador’s Andes Mountains
2003-03-21
In Ecuador’s Carchi province, conflicts over water are common — and so is water theft. But information generated by researchers has helped create a chain reaction that has seen the resolution of a conflict over water between two municipalities; a new approach to the allocation of water in the area; a growing popular movement among local people to protect a unique ecosystem known as the paramo; renewed interest in improving irrigation infrastructure; and a slight, but significant, budge in the region’s entrenched power dynamics.
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 New Hope for Palestinian Refugee Women in Lebanon
2003-01-24
Palestinian women refugees are getting a chance to go to university — and are studying subjects traditionally dominated by men — as a result of a scholarship program supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
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 In Conversation: Celia Reyes on the Importance of Timely Economic Information
2002-12-23
Poverty in the developing world has been shifting perceptibly toward South Asia as well as sub-Saharan Africa. Finding means to deal with this shift greatly concerns Dr Celia Reyes, director of the Micro Impacts of Macroeconomic Adjustment Policies (MIMAP) project in the Philippines, which is supported by IDRC. The Philippine MIMAP project was the first: the network now includes a dozen countries in Asia and Africa.
Dr Reyes is Senior Research Fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies. One of her major research areas is poverty — in particular, assessing the impact of policies and programs on poverty and equity. She has also worked on developing and implementing monitoring systems to provide national and local policymakers with timely information on the welfare status of vulnerable groups.
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 From Research to Policy in Bangladesh
2002-12-23
The link between research and policy is sometimes tenuous. But it is not necessarily so in Bangladesh where researchers from the International Development Research Centre's (IDRC) Micro Impacts of Macroeconomic and Adjustment Policies (MIMAP) program have been working closely with government since the project’s inception in 1992. Ten years later, the research has yielded substantial improvements in the monitoring of poverty, and the poverty monitoring surveys have emerged as a prime source of information, with wide policy implications.
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 Giving the Poor a Voice
2002-12-23
The fight against poverty is fraught with uncertainties. Even the very definition of poverty is elusive: its manifestations and causes vary from country to country; its magnitude fluctuates according to the social and economic context. How to explain why in India, for instance, poverty is high although unemployment is low while the inverse is true in Morocco — or at least, poverty there is not as blatant? And why is it too often true that economic growth in poor countries has done little to reduce poverty — and may in fact have exacerbated it?
These are some of the fundamental questions a network of researchers from 12 Asian and African countries has been grappling with. Members of the Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Network of IDRC’s Micro Impacts of Macroeconomic and Adjustment Policies (MIMAP) program, they met in Rabat, Morocco and Québec City in 2002 to share insights gained through their studies.
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 Wi-Fi: A New Bridge for the Digital Divide?
2002-11-22
Connecting to the Internet using a simple aluminum antenna and a wireless network card could be the best way to narrow Indonesia's digital divide and bolster economic development, says Dr Onno Purbo. The Jakarta-based expert on information and communication technologies (ICTs) was recently at the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) headquarters to talk about his vision.
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 Vital Statistics
2002-11-14
Collecting data in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya can be a dangerous job. Household enumerators who work with the African Population and Health Research Center’s (APHRC) demographic surveillance system (DSS) regularly risk being mugged and robbed by pickpockets. Yet they persist, for the information they gather is vital to efforts to improve the health of these poor communities.
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 Amerindian Researcher Brings Grassroots Views on Mining to Fore
2002-11-01
In Guyana and Colombia, as in most Latin American countries, mining has dramatically increased over the past two decades. But from the contamination of healthy rivers to the lawless atmosphere of mining towns, few have felt the ill effects of mining more than these countries’ Indigenous peoples.
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 Coral Reefs in Thailand: Planning for the Future in a Fragile Paradise
2002-10-04
Since the 2000-release of the Hollywood film The Beach — which featured these Islands along with actor Leonardo DiCaprio — tourism is on the rise and the coral reefs in the Andaman Sea are taking a beating. But Udomsak Seenprachawong fears the economic gains from Phi Phi’s popularity will be short-lived — and the environmental pain irreparable.
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 Vermiculture Improves Urban Farming in Argentina
2002-08-26
Impoverished citizens in Argentina’s third largest city are stepping up efforts to farm in urban neighbourhoods — by using California red worms. Vermiculture (a method of composting fruit and vegetable waste using earthworms) is proving to be an inexpensive and easy way to create high-quality organic fertilizer. It is also boosting crop production and helping the environment.
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 Improve the environment, improve health in Côte d’Ivoire
2002-08-16
In Côte d’Ivoire, researchers are looking at ways to reduce the harmful health impacts of unbridled agricultural development and of a large hydroelectric dam. But there’s a twist — rather than focusing on health services, they are trying to improve people’s health by better managing the local resource base. Their work is supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). This is one of many innovative projects highlighted in a new Web site on IDRC’s contributions to sustainable and equitable development, launched to mark the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), from August 26 to September 4, 2002.
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 The E-Marketers of South India
2002-08-09
Last year, the Foundation of Occupational Development (FOOD India) established India Shop, an e-commerce site to generate income for artisans and the e-marketers who sell their work to online customers worldwide. India Shop became a reality as a result of a $60,000 research and development grant from the International Development Research Centre's (IDRC) Pan Asia Networking (PAN) program initiative.
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 Hidden Links: Irrigation, Malaria, and Gender
2002-07-19
Irrigation projects affect more than agricultural productivity, suggests an ecosystem study by IDRC Program Officer Renaud De Plaen. His results show how the transformation of farming practices and accompanying changes in the power relationships between men and women can affect women’s ability to deal with malaria in their families.
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 A Robin Hood for the Digital Age
2002-05-10
RITS, the Rede de informaçãoes para o terceiro setor, is a nonprofit organization, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that has been working since 1997 to make computer technology and its powerful communication tools available to the poorest sectors of the population, largely bypassed by the digital revolution. RITS’ ultimate aim is to set up a genuine information network.
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 China’s Rural Transformation
2002-05-03
In travels through rural China spanning 20 years, Sam Ho witnessed dramatic changes as highways and factories spread to the countryside. Now the Canadian researcher is leading a major study into China’s rural transformation.
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 Decades of cassava research bear fruit
2002-04-26
From research to results can be a long journey. For his pathbreaking research on cassava, Dr Nagib Nassar, a professor at the Universidade de Brasília, has been nominated for this year’s World Food Prize. Nassar’s early research was supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), as part of the Centre’s cassava breeding research program during the 1970s and 1980s.
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 In Conversation: David Brooks on Water Scarcity and Local-level Management
2002-03-15
There is no silver bullet for managing the water shortages facing many countries, but there is one aspect that has not been sufficiently recognized as part of the solution: water management at the local or community level. This is the point of view of David Brooks, the author of the recent book WATER: Local-level Management published by IDRC.
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 Conserving Biodiversity, Supporting Livelihoods in Panama’s Rainforest
2002-03-01
Where Central and South America come together, grows a rainforest that is one of the richest ecological regions of tropical America. The Indigenous peoples who live there depend on this forest for food, medicine, building materials and much more. But parts of the rainforest are being cut by outsiders, the pressure on natural resources is increasing, and the livelihoods of the Indigenous peoples are threatened.
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 Coping with water crisis in Cuba
2002-02-22
Last year, water supplies reached crisis proportions in Veguita de Galo, a neighbourhood of Santiago in Cuba. The country’s economic decline has led to a slow but steady deterioration of water supplies and sanitation services — and a resulting increase in water-borne disease. However, members of the community have solved the problem by taking matters in their own hands — and using slow sand filters as home water-treatment systems.
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 In Conversation: Michael Quinn Patton
2002-02-08
Many development programs are evaluated to determine how effective and useful they are. But how effective and useful are the evaluations themselves? Internationally renowned evaluator, Michael Quinn Patton, recently came to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to discuss his approach for making sure evaluations are useful for decision-makers.
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 Divining Jordan's desert waters
2002-01-18
Researchers have discovered a system of shallow aquifers just below the surface of Jordan's badia that may provide a vital source of water for the semi-nomadic people who live there. What accounts for the unlikely presence of water a short distance below the surface of the desert? Mostly a quirk of the local geology.
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 Who Pays? Municipal Services in South Africa
2002-01-10
When South Africans discarded apartheid they overcame one of the world’s great problems. Now, they’re dealing with another — equitable water, electricity and waste disposal services. If this challenge seems relatively minor, consider the fact that poorly administered services and related cost recovery programs can affect the stability of national governments. They also have direct and serious consequences for children’s health.
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 Supporting Environmental Science in the Mideast
2001-12-14
Water purification is just one of the subjects studied by students in Jordan’s newly created graduate program in environmental science — a program that was established with the collaboration of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
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 The changing face of inner-city Havana
2001-12-07
In inner-city Havana, Cuba, urban decay is a serious problem. But one neighbourhood stands out for having the country’s most successful community-led projects to revamp the urban scene.
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 Through Farmers' Eyes
2001-11-09
Using first-person stories and pictures taken by women farmers, the book Gender, Land, and Livelihoods in East Africa: Through Farmers' Eyes documents the lives of women in Western Kenya as they struggle to sustain their soils and their livelihoods. Through Farmers' Eyes provides links to an interview with the book's author, Ritu Verma, as well as a slide show, an audio file, and other online resources.
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 Protecting Mangrove Forests in Cambodia
2001-11-02
Some of the last remaining pristine mangrove forests in Southeast Asia are in Cambodia, but these are increasingly under threat. Replanting mangrove forests is one element in a community-based project to ensure the survival of Cambodia's mangrove forests.
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 Trading Diamonds for Guns
2001-10-22
Three researchers set out to show how 'conflict diamonds' were fuelling the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone. Their report, The Heart of the Matter: Sierra Leone, Diamonds and Human Security, has attracted worldwide attention since it was published last year and has contributed to major changes in the international diamond industry.
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 IN CONVERSATION: Robert Prescott-Allen on Measuring the Wellbeing of Nations
2001-10-12
The use of indicators to gauge human progress is common and well understood. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Index of Leading Economic Indicators are two of the best-known examples. Yet, most of the widely cited indicators focus exclusively on economic activity, and even the most progressive of indicators fail to account for key issues of sustainability. The Wellbeing of Nations addresses these shortcomings by surveying 180 countries using the Wellbeing Assessment.
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 From hospitals to herbalists: Rx herbal medicines
2001-10-05
In Uganda, the rural population is as likely to consult a herbalist as a medical practitioner for common complaints. IDRC-supported research is helping healers prepare better, safer, and cheaper remedies.
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