IDRC’s operations in Asia are guided by two regional offices: in Singapore, established in 1971 to serve Southeast and East Asia, and in New Delhi, India, established in 1983. Together these offices coordinate the Centre’s operations in 18 countries. In the past 30 years, IDRC has supported more than 1,820 research projects directed and managed by Asian researchers and institutions. IDRC’s research focus in Asia has evolved in response to the changing needs and priorities of the countries it serves. While the region has made progress on a number of fronts in recent years, many challenges remain, including the following:
More than two-thirds of the world’s absolute poor live in Asia, and there is evidence that globalization processes may be further increasing social and economic disparities;
Gender inequity and its cultural acceptance threaten the wellbeing of women and girls in much of Asia and deprive the region of the talents of a large part of its population;
Whether in vulnerable coastal zones or on fragile mountain slopes, the region faces a serious environmental crisis. Degradation of natural resources and the depletion of species are increasing at an alarming rate, largely the result of a combination of industrial agriculture and agricultural colonization;
Human health is compromised by poverty and environmental degradation, as well as by the limited availability of health services, safe water, and sanitation facilities; and
Conflicts are widespread, whether they be over natural resources, or along religious, ethnic, and regional lines. These accelerate the exclusion of the poor from the common property resources they depend upon, threatening food security and fostering community and international tensions.
IDRC seeks to help local stakeholders find solutions to these and other pressing development needs. The Centre’s research program focuses on three broad areas of enquiry: social and economic equity; environmental and natural resource management; and information and communication technologies for development. Research in these areas seeks to ensure food security, equity in natural resource use, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable employment. It also seeks to develop strategies and policies for healthy societies and to promote the sharing of information, learning, and technology. In focusing on these areas, IDRC plays close attention to governance, the translation of research results into policy decisions, and to gender issues in development.
The Centre supports an integrated approach to research, one that looks at technological, social, and institutional innovations for change. Research is directed toward informing the policy arena (local, national, and international) so that decision-makers can make informed choices based on sound research and analysis.
The Centre’s modus operandi: Collaboration and partnerships
To facilitate information sharing within and across borders and encourage a pooling of resources, IDRC supports extensive networks of researchers, scientists, policy- and decision-makers, assisted by multi-disciplinary teams of its own scientific staff and diverse international experts. Some of these networks, such as the Asia Development Research Forum (ADRF), bring together Asian policy researchers and national research managers to examine and organize thinking around key regional development challenges. Now 80 members strong, the ADRF is guided by a steering committee chaired by the Thailand Research Fund.
Other networks, such as the Macroeconomic and Adjustment Policies Gender Network, link teams in different countries working on a common problem. This particular regional project seeks to add missing pieces to our understanding of poverty – how economic reforms affect women differently than men, and the social impacts, whether it be increased violence against women or higher levels of stress and anxiety.
Still other networks bring together diverse partners in a common cause. This is the case of the Electronic Networking for Rural Asia/Pacific Projects (ENRAP) initiative that links IDRC, Nexus Research (Ireland), the Bellanet Secretariat, and the TeleCommons Development Group (Canada). ENRAP aims to bring the Internet to rural development projects financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) – the United Nations agency charged with alleviating poverty in rural communities and ENRAP’s largest funder – in the poorest parts of Asia and the Pacific.
Exploiting comparative strengths, as in the case of ENRAP, can have financial as well as intellectual dimensions. IDRC, in fact, works in partnership with other donors to maximize the resources available to our Southern partners for their development research efforts. In this context, IDRC’s relationship with the Canadian International Development Agency is unique. CIDA and IDRC have cofunded both small and large projects in Asia since the mid-1980s. Recently, for example, IDRC and CIDA collaborated to improve economic and environmental management in Vietnam through a large project that builds research, policy, and capacity in Vietnamese institutions.
In recent years, the Centre has used its experience in managing such projects to collaborate with other organizations and researchers in the creation of institutions – secretariats – that bring the resources of diverse agencies together. These secretariats, hosted by IDRC, can bring more resources to bear on a specific area of research than any one agency acting alone. IDRC currently hosts six multidonor secretariats whose research agendas range from international tobacco control to research on environmental economics. This latter secretariat, the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), was established in 1993 to support training and research in environmental and resource economics. Based in Singapore, its goal is to strengthen local capacity for the economic analysis of environmental problems so that researchers can provide sound advice to policymakers. Ten countries are now members.
From research to policy
An important – and essential – aspect of IDRC’s programing is to work with developing-country scientists and policymakers to understand how new knowledge can assist them in addressing the barriers to improved lives for people in their country. The aim is to "close the loop" between the creation and acquisition of knowledge and its application to promote prosperity, security, and equity. Examples of projects that are working to this end in Asia include work in the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka to develop better mechanisms to target poverty alleviation; activities to promote the sustainable and equitable use of resources, from medicinal plants to mangrove forests; and experiments to provide wider access to information and communication technologies, in ways that foster development. These initiatives, and others, are described below.
Some examples
Some of the last remaining pristine mangrove forests in Southeast Asia are in Cambodia, but they are under increasing threat as more and more families seek to earn a living by selling logs, charcoal, and aquatic resources. In 1997, researchers set out to find ways for villagers to use the resources of Koh Kong mangroves, but also to manage them so they last. Working with villagers, they identified tree species, replanted mangroves, developed strategies for artisanal fishing, investigated silviculture for charcoal production, and experimented with aquaculture. They also help build the Cambodian government’s capacity to protect the environment by providing training and organizing tours to the area – an unusual occurence in Cambodia. Both villagers and government have changed their ways as a result: communities now develop plans to protect their resources and police themselves. The government, for its part, has recognized in policy that communities have the right to use and manage their own resources.
Mongolia’s first dial-up connection to the Internet – supported by IDRC’s PAN Networking Initiative – dates back to 1994. In the years since, public Internet centres have opened and demand continues to grow for additional services. In 1998, with funding from IDRC, a second project was launched to test wireless technologies to guide the extension of Internet access to all of Mongolia’s 22 provinces. This would enable such advances as continuing education programs at a distance. However, Web-based instruction methods and technologies need to be researched, developed, and tested. A project led by The English for Special Purposes Institute in Ulaanbaatar is now doing just that so that appropriate technology choices are available to country’s distance education system. The project also aims to encourage the national educational authority to formulate a vision and strategic plan for technology-based distance education within the national education policy framework.
Medicinal and aromatic plants are an essential part of traditional health care systems, on which more than 80 % of South Asia’s population depends. Gathering and cultivating these plants also provides a critical source of income for many rural communities, especially the landless poor and marginalized farmers. Recognizing the importance of these plants and the threats to their survival, IDRC began supporting research in this area in 1992 through the South Asia IDRC Medicinal Plants Network (IMPN). The first two phases of the IMPN focused on documenting and conserving medicinal and aromatic plants, developing projects, and initiating networking activities among the research partners. In 1998, IDRC and the Ford Foundation launched the Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Program in Asia (MAPPA) to build on research results and networking partnerships in a more comprehensive and regional manner. The countries involved are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Nepal. MAPPA’s main goal is to institute a system of long-term sustainable and equitable use of medicinal and aromatic plants by supporting research to develop innovative conservation methods, promote sustainable and equitable commercialization, and improve options for safe and effective health care.
In the Philippine province of Palawan – a narrow archipelago of 1,700 islands – more than half the population is poor. When provincial officials sat down to plan the 1999 budget, they were determined to change that reality. Doing so, however, required first finding a way to measure the quality of life of households over the longer term so they could plan more efficiently and effectively. The method adopted was a community-based poverty monitoring system designed and tested by the Micro Impacts of Macroeconomic and Adjustment Policies (MIMAP) Philippines project. Low-cost, easy-to-sustain, and capable of being conducted yearly by trained local field workers, the system provides data on core poverty at the household level. It enables planners and policymakers to monitor the impact of programs over time, and determine whether conditions are improving, getting worse, or staying the same. The Palawan community-based monitoring and planning system is now an integral part of the Palawan provincial and Puerta Princessa municipal governments resource allocation systems. Discussions are also underway with the Philippines national Anti-Poverty Commission and the League of governors to introduce this system nation-wide. The first MIMAP project was launched in the Philippines in 1990. Since then, MIMAP has helped to build the knowledge base and capacities to measure and analyze poverty, and to develop policy alternatives, in more than a dozen countries in Asia and Africa.
Millions of people in Asia depend on bamboo and rattan for their livelihood. And yet, until the early 1980s, little research had been carried out on these plants. Recognizing the socioeconomic importance of bamboo and rattan to developing countries, in 1979 IDRC initiated support for research aimed at better understanding, developing, and using the plants Five years later, an informal network was created to link national programs. In 1993, the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) was formally established by IDRC and IFAD. Today, INBAR is an international organization with 22 member states, including Canada, headquartered in Beijing – the first international research and development organization based in the People’s Republic of China. Its research and outreach activities seek to to improve the well-being of producers and users of bamboo and rattan while sustaining the resource base. From its home in Asia, INBAR extended its activities to Africa and Latin America in 1999.
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