May 2015 - IDRC Latin America and the Caribbean newsletter

Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean

May 2015

SPANISH VERSION news / Calls and awards / Recent and upcoming events / New projects / Publications and project articles

3rd International Open Data Conference 2015 in Canada From May 28-29, 2015 private and public and open data experts, senior government officials, industry leaders, and civil society champions from around the world will gather in Ottawa, Canada to exchange ideas and work together to enable the data revolution.

Take a look at the conference agenda to learn about the variety of topics to be covered at the event. While you visit, read up on conference speakers and attendees, access the conference blog and download the IODC2015 App for your mobile device. Follow the conference on Twitter @opendatacon Read more

IDRC adopts new Open Access Policy IDRC has announced a new open access policy for all its funded project outputs. The policy applies to all outputs resulting from proposals received after the policy takes effect on July 20, 2015.

IDRC’s open access policy is based on the belief that full social and economic benefits of research in support of development should be available to everyone who could use it – and build on it – to improve people’s lives.

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Innovations for large scale impact in Latin America to foster financial and economic inclusion The event “Innovations for large scale impact in Latin America to foster financial and economic inclusion” will take place on June 8th at IDRC headquarters in Ottawa. Drawing on the experiences of Proyecto Capital, the Graduation Initiative, and Fundación Capital, Yves Moury, President and CEO of Fundación Capital will share the lessons learned on how to foster large scale economic inclusion of the region’s poorest populations. His presentation will include an overview of regional initiatives, with a focus on innovations and the role of private and public partnerships.

Admission is free. Register here.

Labour and social inclusion of youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) The “Keys to effective labour and social inclusion of NEET youth” forum took place in Santiago, Chile on May 15th. With support from IDRC and the CAF/Latin American Development Bank, the event was organized by Espacio Publico, and aimed to bring forth ideas on solutions to the so-called NEET phenomena and to examine existing public policies on this topic. Participants in the meeting shared studies on programs focussed on the labour and social insertion of this group at a national, regional and international level, as well as studies on youth employment policies in Latin America.

Read more (Spanish)

World Water Congress On May 27th IDRC is organizing a special session on “Climate Change and Water in Developing Countries”. The session is part of the activities organized during the XV World Water Congress, to take place in Edinburgh, Scotland from May 25th 29th, 2015.

Researchers from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean will present a variety of solutions for adapting to the water-related impacts of climate change in developing countries Follow the event through twitter @H2OClimate or #CCAdaptQs during the week.

Adaptation strategies in coastal communities Canada-Caribbean The C-CHANGE Project, Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean is a collaborative International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) initiative with the goal of assisting coastal communities to share experiences and tools that aid adaptation to changes in physical and social coastal environments. The six year project (2009-2015) just published the final report. The project was funded by IDRC and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) and led by the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, UWI, Trinidad and Tobago and the Telfer School of Management of the University of Ottawa Read final technical report at IDRC’s Digital Library

Or visit project website

How innovative are Colombian entrepreneurs?

According to GEM Colombia, between 2006 and 2013 there was a significant change in the innovative attitudes of companies in the country, as more and more companies identified themselves and their products as innovative in the eyes of consumers. Meanwhile, the proportion of companies using new technology in their enterprises continues to be very low and declining. These are some of the results published in the “GEM Colombia 2006 – 2013″ report which was launched in Medellin on May 7th. Results will be shared with business people, researchers, educators, government officials, private sector players, students and all those interested in the business environment.

The report will be presented on May 29th at 9:00 am at the Bogota Chamber of Commerce.

Read more (Colombia report, Spanish)

Read more (presentation Chamber of Commerce)

Enhancing Knowledge for Innovation in Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada Fourteen new grants to support faculty exchanges for research between 15 Canadian and 16 Latin American and Caribbean higher learning institutions were selected though the 2014 Canada-Latin America and the Caribbean Research Exchange program led by Universities Canada with funding from IDRC. Research will take place in Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico and, Trinidad & Tobago. Projects will tackle research on development issues relating to health, climate change, agriculture, sustainable community development, resource management, among others.

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Innovative Practices of Inclusive Urban Development and Poverty Reduction Volume 4, N°2 (2015) of the journal “Universitas Forum” presents a variety of successful inclusive urban development experiences that have addressed the different dimensions of poverty as they are lived in urban settings. These experiences come from very different developmental and cultural contexts: Senegal, Uganda and Zimbabwe in Africa; Bangladesh and India in Asia; Winnipeg, Canada; Mexico, Colombia and Peru in Latin America. This volume is part of research led by the University of Winnipeg in Canada which received IDRC funding.

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Scaling up natural resources chains in South America ¿SUBIENDO LA ESCALERA? Obstacles, opportunities and lessons on scaling-up natural resources chains in South America is the title of Mercosur’s Economic Research Network (Red Sur) Annual Report. This report examines how South American countries and companies are inserted into intensive natural resources value chains and whether or not they are undergoing a scaling up process.

Read more (Spanish)

Building safer and more inclusive cities in Latin America Between May 13th -14th, a series of panels with project leaders from Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Venezuela, supported by IDRC’s Safe and Inclusive Cities Program, presented their research findings. Sessions were recorded and are accessible at:

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“Policy Options for Building Safe And Inclusive Cities In Latin America” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

“Conceptual and Methodological Approaches to the Study of Safe and Inclusive Cities In Latin America”, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

Participatory Action Research in Health Systems: A Methods Reader, available in Spanish The methods reader, published in English and recently translated to Spanish, was jointly produced by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) and IDRC. A product of team work, the reader draws on global experience and published work and explains: key features of participatory action research and the history and knowledge paradigms that inform it; processes and methods used in participatory action research, including innovations and developments in the field and the ethical and methods issues in implementing it; and communication, reporting, institutionalization and use of participatory action research in health systems.

Access publication Spanish or English

RedSur – Award for journalists in Latin America Until May 29th, submissions can be presented to the first edition of the Latin American journalist award, organized by the South American Network for Applied Economics Network (RedSur). The award seeks to encourage and support the popularization of research on natural resources in the Latin America media. The call is open to Latin American journalists who have published in the media (print or digital) between January 2014 and March 2015.

Deadline: May 29, 2015 Read more (Spanish)

Call for proposals - Quality and Innovation of Education in Latin America The Latin American Initiative for Public Policy Research (ILAIPP) is formed by twelve Latin American research centers with the aim of promoting social, economic, institutional and political changes towards more opportunities for the region’s population. ILAIPP currently has a call for the submission of research proposals for the "Second Regional Conference" that will be held in Lima, Peru in March 2016.

Selected researchers or research teams will be awarded an equivalent of 12,000 USD. A maximum of 5 proposals will be selected. ILIAPP is funded by IDRC’s Think Tank initiative.

Deadline: June 12th, 2015 Read more (Spanish)

Research on food system policies and market innovations for non-communicable disease prevention IDRC launched a call for proposals which aims to reduce and prevent malnutrition and food-related chronic illnesses, in ways that are environmentally sustainable. The main objective is to explore and understand public policy interventions and market innovations that improve the quality and diversity of food and enable adoption of healthy and sustainable diets among vulnerable populations. The call is open to organizations based in low- or middle-income countries in South Asia, South East Asia, and Latin America. Argentina, Belice, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam and Uruguay are among the elegible countries in the LAC region.

Deadline: July 3rd, 2015 Read more

May 12-13, 2015

May. 13-14, 2015 May 14, 2015 May 14, 2015 May 24-29, 2015 May 27, 2015 May 27-29, 2015 May. 27-30, 2015 May 28, 2015 Jun. 01, 2015 Jun. 08, 2015

“Workshop - DELTAS: Desenvolvimento de indicadores para o Índice de Vulnerabilidade Global de Deltas (GDVI) e para o Estuário - Delta do Amazonas”, Belém, Brazil, UFPA “Opciones de política para construir ciudades seguras e inclusivas en América Latina”, Washington, USA “Foro: Claves para una efectiva inserción social y laboral de los nini”, Santiago de Chile, Chile, Espacio Público “PYMEs y los avances silenciosos hacia la competitividad empresarial y sostenibilidad”, Lima, Peru - CER “XIV International Human Rights Colloquium”, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Conectas Sesión Especial “Cambio Climático y Agua en los países en desarrollo” Edinburgh, Scotland, IDRC “3era Conferencia Internacional de Datos Abiertos” Ottawa, Canada “XXXIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association”, San Juan, Puerto Rico - LASA “Retos y dinámicas del sistema fronterizo peruano”, Lima, Peru, CIESPA “Workshop sobre desempeño de empresas locales de tecnologías de información y generación de empleos”, Córdoba, Argentina - Universidad Nacional de Córdoba “Innovations for large scale impact in Latin America to foster financial and economic inclusion”, Ottawa, Canada, IDRC

SCALA – Linking vulnerable youth and women to innovative commercialization networks A large percentage of LAC’s population has no choice but to survive on earnings from their own micro-enterprises, with microenterprises representing 75% of the region's entrepreneurs. Since many of these small businesses fail, or continue to exist on subsistence levels there is an urgent need to test different business models for the region to unlock their entrepreneurial potential. Therefore, IDRC, Citi Foundation and IADB/MIF will collaborate through the "SCALA" initiative to test, generate and share knowledge to promote business models to generate economic opportunities for approximately 25,000 vulnerable youth and women in LAC. In particular, IDRC will support "SCALA-IDN", a resource centre to generate and disseminate knowledge, experiences and results of the effectiveness of the models as they are tested out.

Copyright and Innovation in the Developing World As user generated content becomes a commodity of increasing importance for business, new questions are arising. Who owns the content? How can individuals and companies reuse and repurpose digital content? Who can profit from it? Who is liable when others infringe on legal ownership of content? Governments around the world are attempting to answer these questions, as they are key to creating the enabling conditions for economic growth and innovation in the digital economy. To support governments grappling with these issues, a research team led by ONG Derechos Digitales in Chile will explore the difference copyright law makes to economic, social, and cultural outcomes. It will build a trans-national 'index' of changes in copyright law in 50 countries, which will allow for more rigorous analysis of relationships between these formal legal environments and other development variables.

This index will be complemented by sector specific studies in India, Colombia, Brazil and Chile that explore new forms of payment and rewards for developing-country creators who distribute their content globally.

Addressing the emergence and spread of leishmaniasis in the borders of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay

Leishmaniasis is one of the most important vector-borne diseases worldwide causing more than 2 million new cases per year. In South America, both cutaneous leishmaniasis and the more severe visceral form of the disease are emerging in many countries and expanding northward and southward. The vector is present in the border regions of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and in the North of Uruguay. In December 2014 for the first time in Uruguay dog Visceral Leishmaniasis was found nearby the city of Saito. The project that started in 2014 and will add a fourth component – Uruguay’s Ministry of Public Health – to study the drivers of transmission and characterize the situation in the north of Uruguay in border areas with Argentina.

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IDRC IN THE NEWS Want to stay to stay up to date on the information published by the media on the projects we fund in Latin America and the Caribbean?

Follow us on Storify where we update information daily..

HIGHLIGHTS •

Terra (Argentina) – “ Hypertension: what are the saltiest foods consumed in Argentina?” on the occasion of World Hypertension Day 2015 (May 17th) published an article which mentions data of the research led by the Instituto de Efectividad

Clínica y Sanitaria (IECS) on the consumption of sodium in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Rio Negro in Argentina. This corresponds to IDRC financed project “Assessing the Impact of Current National Policies to Reduce Salt and Trans Fatty Acids in Argentina”.

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Teletica (Costa Rica) - Under the title “Salt intake in Costa Rican households doubled level recommended by experts” Costa Rica televisión interview Dra. Adriana Blanco, coordinator of INCIENSA and the Representative of the Chamber of Food Industry of Costa Rica. The project “Supporting a population wide reduction of salt consumption in Costa Rica” is funded by IDRC.

Agriculture and Environment “Como acceder a los subsidios de agua potable: Guía para organizaciones comunitarias”, Amaya Domínguez J.L.; Roa García M.C.; corrales Marín S.M.; Gómez Ramírez O.F.; Blanco Moreno C.; Vidal J.; López Ramos L.; Moreno Escobar Y.; FEG, CINARA, IDRC; 2014 “Adquisición de predios estratégicos para la conservación del agua: Guía para las asociaciones de usuarios de acueductos” Borrero Navia, J.J.; CELA, FEG, IDRC; 2014

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Social and Economic Policy • •

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“Mujeres indígenas: clamor por la justicia; violencia sexual, conflicto armado y despojo violento de tierra”, Méndez Gutiérrez, L.; Carrera Guerra, A.; Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Acción Psicosocial – ECAP; 2014 “Lecciones aprendidas y desafíos sobre la incidencia en políticas públicas de las evaluaciones de impacto en América Latina”, Aquilino, N. ; Estevez, S.; CIPPEC, Serie Think Tanks; 2015 “¿Qué significa manejar bien el dinero? Análisis comparativo entre usuarias de JUNTOS que han recibido y no han recibido Educación Financiera”, Caballero, E.; IEP; Proyecto Capital, Serie Miscelánea, 35; 2015 “Innovación y redes de conocimiento: el caso de una empresa del sector forestal en Uruguay”, Aboal, D.; Rovira, F.; Veneri, F.; RedSur; Serie Documentos del Reporte Anual, 2015 “Bridging gender gaps? The rise and deceleration of female labor force participation in Latin America”, Gasparini, L.; Marchionni, M.; CEDLAS – UNLP; 2015 “Mini soap operas foster financial education and inclusion of women in Peru”, IDRC; 2015

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean Avda. Brasil 2655, 11300 Montevideo, Uruguay Tel: +598 2 7090042 Email: lacro@idrc.ca www.idrc.ca/lacro

Comments or suggestions write to lacro@idrc.ca