The Corporate Strategy and Program Framework (CS+PF) is IDRC’s strategic plan. As part of the preparations for the CS+PF for 2005-2010, IDRC conducted a situation analysis, or environmental scan, of IDRC’s operating environment in 2003. This environmental scan took the form of ten background papers commissioned from distinguished scholars from Canada and around the world. These ten external scan papers covered the Canadian research environment, the development assistance environment, Canadian foreign policy, knowledge networks, and global and regional issues related to research for development. The use of outside experts as the authors of these background papers was intended to ensure the independence and the originality of the ideas and analysis in the background papers.

While this external scan was going on, the Centre decided to add what is in effect an eleventh background paper, one looking at the recent discourse that identifies development as the progressive realisation of human rights and freedoms. This eleventh paper was drafted by an IDRC staff member on the basis of material generated by an internal IDRC discussion group.

These eleven background papers helped form the basis for extensive discussions among IDRC staff, management and Governors as the CS+PF 2005-2010 was prepared. Other elements of the environmental scan included face-to-face consultations with the Canadian foreign policy community, the Canadian research community, and groups of experts from developing countries, as well as electronic and face-to-face discussions among IDRC staff. Many sources and viewpoints fed into IDRC’s strategic planning process.

Consistent with its commitment to making knowledge as freely available as possible, IDRC is pleased to make these 11 background papers available in electronic format. These papers have not been edited to academic publication standards, and have not been subjected to double-blind peer review. The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s), and their publication here does not imply any endorsement by IDRC’s management or Board of Governors. IDRC retains copyright on all these papers.