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• The 2006 Water and Pollution issue of Corporate Knights featured an article about the water wars in Cochabamba and the laws on access rights to water in Bolivia.  The article highlights IDRC’s support to the research that underlies new water laws in Bolivia. The special issue also features a contribution by IDRC’s Michelle Hibler about several IDRC-supported water-related projects in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. 

• Mary Coyle, IDRC Governor and Director of the Coady International Institute at St Francis Xavier University, was quoted in The Sunday Herald and The Daily News in anticipation of Canada’s Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s State visit to Africa in December 2006. Coyle also penned an open editorial about Canada's contributions to the microcredit movement for The Globe and Mail. Coyle joined IDRC President Maureen O’Neil as a member of the delegation accompanying Ms. Jean on her travels to five African countries. 

• The children’s French-language science magazine Les Débrouillards dedicated two pages of its December 2006 issue to an article about an IDRC-supported urban agriculture project in Rosario, Argentina.  Read the article: http://www.lesdebrouillards.qc.ca/upload/articles//fichiers/153/153.pdf

• Dr Gordon Smith, Chairman of IDRC’s Board of Governors, wrote an open editorial about Canada's foreign policy in Afghanistan for the December 14 edition of The Globe and Mail.

• IDRC President Maureen O'Neil discussed the issue of bednets in the fight against malaria in Africa in the December 29 edition of IPP Media.  The Tanzania Essential Health Intervention Project (TEHIP), originally supported by IDRC, is further identified as a key tool in reducing malaria-related deaths in Tanzania.  Read the article: http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2006/12/29/81275.html        

IDRC participated in the 2006 Microcredit Summit in Halifax November 12 to 15 and garnered this media coverage:

• Heloise Emdon, Senior Program Officer with IDRC’s Acacia program in Southern Africa, and IDRC-supported development practitioner, Khadija Shamte, an IT Consultant with Adept Systems in Nairobi, were interviewed by Halifax’s The Daily News. They spoke about the impact of open source software in the microfinance industry and Mifos, an Open Source software created by the Grameen Foundation and launched by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Mohammad Yunus at the Summit on November 13. 

• Khadija Shamte was also interviewed by The Globe and Mail about the impact of cell phones in the developing world; her photograph appeared on the front page of The Globe and Mail's Report on Business.

Afghanistan Unveiled

In November, IDRC, in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders Canada, sent  two female Afghan journalists on a cross-Canada tour. Mehria Azizi, camerawoman for AÏNA, and Najiba Ayubi of the Killid Radio Group, presented a documentary on the situation of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan and spoke in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Calgary, and Ottawa.

The Ottawa event, which aired on CPAC, was held at IDRC headquarters on November 22. Ted Menzies, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation, delivered opening remarks, and Kady O'Malley of Maclean’s Magazine moderated the event.  Articles about the women appeared in Le devoir, The Montreal Gazette, The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, and Embassy Magazine, and they were interviewed on Radio Canada International (RCI), Radio-Canada (SRC), and CBC Radio.

2007-01

News 28 of 34