Message from the President

IDRC’ s adaptability, responsiveness, and resilience were on full display this past year as the Centre worked collaboratively with partners and researchers around the world to develop innovative solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and other pressing and persistent challenges.

The Centre worked with partners to adapt, launch, and implement vital research in response to the pandemic and ensure uninterrupted support to researchers during a time of great uncertainty. The result of this work is programming that builds on experience, responds to urgent local needs, and maintains a long-term focus on building resilient, inclusive, and sustainable societies.

For example, researchers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) funded by IDRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council are contextualizing lessons learned from the Ebola pandemic to support the DRC’ s COVID-19 response. This includes providing expertise to help the government track and analyze real-time data about health service utilization by the public and boosting mental health support to survivors and their families as a critical part of pandemic response and recovery.

This sort of innovation supports informed choices in a rapidly changing environment, while also ensuring those choices consider the short- and long-term needs of communities. It also demonstrates how Canadian partners are collaborating to achieve impact and support Canada ’ s international pandemic response.

The combination of the acute impact of COVID-19 and longterm challenges, such as climate change, that threaten progress against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) shines a light on the vital importance of resilience.

Climate change hotspots — places where strong effects of climate change coincide with large vulnerable populations — have the greatest need for innovative solutions. IDRC is supporting the generation of evidence and tools to enable developing countries to strengthen climate change resilience.

For example, IDRC-supported research has helped Indian cities become more climate resilient in the face of extreme heat, which is affecting health, work productivity, and livelihoods. Researchers from Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe), in collaboration with municipal corporations, developed and implemented Heat Stress Action Plans (HSAPs). They include mapping vulnerable areas, an early warning system, community awareness campaigns, measures for the differential needs of men and women, and specialized public health preparedness training. Over 500 public health professionals were trained in diagnosis, emergency management, and managing illness due to heat stress. The city of Rajkot, India is now issuing HSAPs that consider COVID-19’ s impacts, enabling governments to uphold their commitment to improve the preparedness of hospitals and health centres.

The three themes of adaptability, responsiveness, and resilience are reflected in our programming, but so too have they been attributes demonstrated by IDRC employees this past year. I am in awe of their unwavering dedication at a time of great uncertainty and stress in their personal lives and when they were adjusting to new ways of working remotely.

IDRC’ s Board of Governors are a guiding light for the Centre through their leadership, oversight, and strategic guidance. Their expertise was particularly valuable in guiding the Centre through its pandemic response and in finalizing Strategy 2030. Strategy 2030 will shape our efforts over the next 10 years through an ambitious agenda to invest in high-quality research and innovation in developing countries, share knowledge for greater uptake and use, and mobilize alliances for impact.

A global pandemic, the growing effects of climate change, and worsening inequalities are eroding recent development gains. But through innovative, sustainable, and inclusive solutions and new and strengthened forms of collaboration, we can advance the SDGs and lay the groundwork for a better world that benefits everyone.

Jean Lebel, PhD President