Canada

The IDRC Digital Library provides full access over the Internet to IDRC’s rich research archive. In addition to making information more freely available, this initiative provides IDRC-funded researchers with a much-needed outlet to publish and showcase their work.

Saraswati Adhikari has reason to be proud: 16 times the Nepali farmer and her husband Surya Nath have successfully improved local varieties of rice by cross-breeding, in the process helping to conserve agricultural biodiversity.

They are unlikely heroes — poor families who eke out a living fishing by lantern-light. Yet, they have been recognized internationally for their efforts to conserve the marine environment on the Danajon Bank in the Central Philippines.

These awards reflect the fact that the boundaries between international development policy and domestic policy increasingly parallel similar problems in developing countries so that both Canada and the less developed countries benefit from research on these issues.

IDRC's research activities focus on four program areas: Social and Economic Policy, Environment and Natural Resource Management, Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs) for Development and Innovation, Policy and Science

The 11 case studies featured illustrate how local innovations in participatory natural resource management can strengthen livelihoods, build capacity for local governance, and spark policy change.

Tobacco is a crop as addictive to growers in the developing world as it is to any user. For them, dependency is economic rather than physical or psychological – but while ready cash is attractive, farmers are beginning to realize that growing tobacco is threatening the health of their families, their land, and their local ecosystems.

Most Indians not working in agriculture rely on the country’s large “traditional” or informal sector for their livelihood. Those employed in the country’s “modern” economy work in small firms, with fewer than six employees, or in large establishments of 300 or more workers. In between is a yawning divide.

"How could it be that an event of this magnitude was ignored? 10 000 people were killed each day. That’s three 9/11s a day for a hundred days — and we barely noticed it? It’s mind-boggling. What went wrong in the media system that caused us to fail?"

IDRC Visiting Executive, Howard Alper, has been named cochair of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) on International Issues. The network of science academies from 90 countries offers advice to governments on international science-based issues.

The developing world’s poorest people live in marginal, often harsh rural environments. The natural resource base tends to be fragile and highly vulnerable to over exploitation. This book draws on more than a decade of research and presents case studies from Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Ecuador, Lebanon, and Viet Nam.

To commemorate the 17th Jailed Journalists Support Day, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Reporters Without Borders Canada invited two Afghan journalists to tour five Canadian cities to speak about freedom of the press and the role of women in Afghanistan.

The workshop, supported by AIT, IDRC, and Rockefeller Foundation, will examine existing policies on bio-innovations in the region, identify existing research gaps and recommend a strategy for information sharing, learning and partnering.

There will be a media briefing on the Partnership and the two research projects at the Friendship Hotel, Bai Shi Qiao Road, Haidian District, Beijing on Tuesday evening, April 25th, 2006, 5.30 – 6.30PM. IDRC representatives and key national officials and researchers will be available for interview by the press.

IDRC would like to appoint a local writer who is based in Jakarta to participate in the project described below.

Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is pleased to announce its support of the Asia Research Partnership on Pandemic Influenza. Pandemic experts, scientists and Asian national granting councils will meet in Beijing, China, on April 24-26 to formalize the Partnership.

The BAIF Development Research Foundation, in partnership with IDRC and nine Indian nongovernmental organizations, and with the financial support of the Canadian International Development Agency, has been exploring women's empowerment processes through a five-year, multi-institution, multi-state initiative, the Swayamsiddha project.

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.