Wastewater Shores Up Food Security 2009-10
Already home to more than half of humanity, cities are growing rapidly in the world’s poorest countries. Amid food-price volatility and climate shocks, food production in and around these cities should be encouraged to meet the increasing demands, argues the head of IDRC's Urban Poverty and Environment program.

African Universities Need Affordable and Reliable Broadband 2009-10
Most universities in Africa pay about 100 times as much for the Internet as do those in Canada. IDRC is working to help solve this problem.

Small and Big Efforts Both Belong in Food Security Drive 2009-06
Renewed support for agricultural research that will benefit the world’s poorest farmers and consumers is urgently needed, argue two environmental experts at IDRC.

A Win-Win Situation: More Research in Partnership with the Developing World 2009-04
The people and ideas needed to address global challenges can be anywhere. Naser Faruqui, Director of IDRC's Innovation, Policy and Science program, explains how IDRC helps both Canada and the developing world tackle shared challenges.

Commentary: From the Rockies to the Andes — How to Manage Scarcer Water Supplies 2008-10
Water has long been a shared concern to Albertans and Bolivians; both grapple with how to fairly and efficiently manage scarce water supplies.

Investing in Global Shock Absorbers 2006-06
Canada's funding for the International Monetary Fund's "Exogenous Shocks Facility" is an important contribution to dealing with a problem that warrants greater international attention and more creative solutions.

Viewpoint: Bandwidth Can Bring African Universities Up to Speed 2005-07-05
Improved communication and access to information could help tertiary institutions in Africa connect on an equal footing with their counterparts around the world, and nurture the intellectual capital needed to address Africa's development challenges.

Repairing the Past for a Better Future
The role of reparations in transitions to democracy 2004-03-30
Prosecuting perpetrators of human rights abuses has become a necessary and familiar part of a society’s passage from conflict to peaceful development. But punitive justice is only one side of that complicated transition. Another side, just as necessary, is reparative justice for victims. Reparations, whether material or symbolic, can heal lives and mend societies. Yet they remain relatively unexamined as policy options. IDRC President Maureen O’Neil describes this as an urgent mission for researchers — to explore the potential and complexities of reparations, and to present the issues to policy-makers as real and practical choices.

Viewpoint: WTO — The Knowledge Deficit in Trade Negotiations 2003-09-23
The ferocity of negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) was on display again at the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Cancún, Mexico from September 10 to 14. The intensity of the negotiations reflects more than a clash of opinions about free trade. It gives expression to a deep and dangerous power imbalance that afflicts poor countries bargaining with the rich.

It is not that developing countries lack skilled and tenacious negotiators. On the contrary, all but the smallest poor countries have enough trade-policy experts to hold their own in Cancún. What many developing countries mostly lack, far more dangerously, is the capacity to analyze and understand their own interests in trade negotiations. Poor countries, almost by definition, suffer a knowledge deficit. They have not developed the aggregations of scholars, interest groups, nongovernmental organizations, and professional public servants that work to generate the hard facts and policy prescriptions informing policy-making in the rich countries.

Viewpoint: SARS, AIDS, and Public Health 2003-06-20
For most of the past century, the spread of mysterious, frightening infectious diseases is something that’s occurred mostly in poorer parts of the planet. Enter Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which has suddenly put Canada on the same plane — in the eyes of much of the world — as rural China. Tragic as it has been, Canada’s experience of SARS has a potentially positive outgrowth. It can drive home some critical lessons about public health that many developing countries have paid dearly to learn.

Viewpoint: Tariffs and Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries 2003-02-07
There is a consensus emerging that momentum towards a more open global trading system has been dissipating rapidly since the Doha World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings of 2001. It is worth assessing why this is the case, particularly as high levels of protection in developing countries continue to receive attention.

Viewpoint: Lighting Fires for Tobacco Control 2002-12-06
When it comes to dealing with the ill-effects of tobacco consumption politicians don't so much see the light as they feel the fire. The question for researchers is: how can we help light the fires that motivate people?

Viewpoint: New Partnership for African Development 2002-11-29
With its declaration of African leadership and responsibility, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) represents radical progress, asserts Constance Freeman. The Regional Director of IDRC's office in Nairobi, Kenya calls on Canada and other countries to support the plan.

Viewpoint: A Lesson in Water Management from the Developing World 2002-07-05
What is the best way to manage our water supply? Canadians may learn from the experience of local communities in other parts of the world argue Mark Winfield, the Director of the Environmental Governance Program at the Pembina Institute and David B. Brooks, natural resource economist.

Viewpoint: Conflict Diamonds — Unfinished Business 2002-06-07
The important international agreement on diamonds reached this year will not be effective if it is not monitored, and if the countries and companies that traffic in conflict diamonds are not stopped, according to Ian Smillie. Corresponding article: Trading Diamonds for Guns, by Keane Shore.

Viewpoint: Mountain Prophecies 2002-03-22
Looking to the mountains may give us an early indication of what's in store for the entire planet. This is the point of view of Hans Schreirer, a Canadian researcher who has extensively studied water and resource issues in the Himalayas and Andes.

Viewpoint: Tobacco Marketing — Where There’s Smoke, there’s Deception 2002-02-15
In Egypt, people can enter a contest to win a trip beyond the realm of possibility for most citizens — a trip to “Malboro Country”. They just need proof of purchase of five packages of cigarettes. Linda Waverley Brigden, the Executive Director of Research for International Tobacco Control (RITC), argues that the majority of developing countries have very limited laws to control tobacco — and the marketing of tobacco products in many of these countries is reprehensible.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas after Buenos Aires: "Much ado about nothing?" 2001-05-17
If civil society scored a small victory at the early April trade ministers' meeting in Buenos Aires, proponents of free trade did not. Little progress was made on the key trade concerns which would give Latin American countries free market access. And what progress has been achieved has made it clear that free trade may produce as many losers as winners. Among the losers could be the already disadvantaged groups in society and the environment.