Le journal de l'IRD
n° 44 April-May-June 2008
Translator: Nicholas Flay
Abstracts for the international issue
You recently met the IRD directors.
In your opinion,
what are the similarities
in operation and possibilities
for cooperation with
our establishment?
I think that the IRDC and the IRD are motivated by the same conviction of the
importance of the role of research and
innovation in the service of development.
Our two organizations are tackling common issues and your approach, like ours,
is multidisciplinary. It must also be said
that our paths have crossed on several
occasions, in the course of our projects.
Hunger returns
© CRDI /Djibril Sy
p. 6 Training
p. 5 Partners
Co-development
for biodiversity
Already highly positive results
E
©IRD/F. Engelmann
p. 12 IRD World
Methods for polluting less
R
esearch scientists of Central Africa are getting organized in order gradually to free themselves from the
need to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The issues at
stake and the current situation were reviewed at the
“Regional Scientific Activity” (Animation Scientifique
Régionale) days held in Yaounde (Cameroon) in December 2007 on the theme
“Biotechnologies and control of agricultural inputs in Central Africa”.
T
The question of Indian health in Brazil
I
mprovement in health conditions represents the primary claim of indigenous populations
in Brazil, after the regularizing of the land tenure issues of their territories. However, health
cannot be boiled down to a simple absence of disease. It is the
product also of sociocultural and economic factors such as the
integrity of national territory, conservation of the environment
and traditional systems of medicine (of culture as a whole entity) and political self-determination. It is therefore not the result
only of health assistance.
Fifty support and research projects were
launched at the beginning of the year and
an International Masters has been set up.
The latter is to start at the beginning of
the 2009 academic year.
p. 7 Research
Onchocerciasis
Maintaining the
advances obtained
from an exemplary
control programme
© IRD/M. Jégu
T
© IRD/H. Guillaume
Crisis of territory,
crisis of identity
p. 3 News
he onchocerciasis (river blindness) control programmes run
since the 1970s have met with
tremendous success and the disease
is often considered as one of the
past. Unfortunately these results,
the fruit of particularly favourable
circumstances, are still not permanently accomplished. Before the
advent of a medicine active on the adult worm, the future depends on two factors: the continuation of the commitment of the distributors of ivermectin, generally voluntary, and maintenance of the effectiveness of this medical drug.
ndonesia imports annually 200 million
dollars worth of fish meal destined for
the aquaculture sector. Current overexploitation of natural reserves and the
increase in world demand for fish meal
are creating a risk that this dependence
might strength. Meanwhile, Indonesia
produces an annual 2 million tonnes of
palm kernel cake, a by-product of the oilpalm industry, a sector in which Indonesia
is one of the leaders. A bioconversion
process developed by IRD scientist Saurin
Hem transforms this waste product,
otherwise difficult to dispose of, with a
view to replacing the fish meal. By providing new sources of raw materials and
developing a use for a farming industry
by-product, he has brought a new solution to a sizeable dilemma in terms of
economics, food supplies and ecological
considerations and gives an illustration of
the notion of
“services provided by ecosystems”, an
integral and
essential element of biodiversity management.
p. 10 Research
Kenya
den (Emerging diseases in a changing European environment), a project financed for
five years by the European Commission, showed at its 3rd annual meeting (14 to
18 January 2008, Brno, Czech Republic) some concrete scientific advances: 80 publications!
This initiative taken by Cirad, the IRD and the Institut Pasteur de Paris is at the same time the
first project of this size – 49 institutions from 24 countries pool their knowledge and skills –
and the emergence of an approach different from standard health projects in that it is multidisciplinary and centred on the environment.
I
n order to support the effort of many
developing countries wishing to know,
conserve and valorise their plant biodiversity in a sustainable way the French
Ministry of Foreign and European affairs
(MAE) launched the programme ‘Sud
Expert Plantes (SEP)’, a North-South codevelopment initiative focused on plant
biodiversity. In order to make a success of
this programme of over 3 million Euros
over five years, the MAE has made the IRD
the overall coordinating authority for the
programme.
I
© IRD/C.Médard
he setting-up of the International
Development Research Centre (IRDC)
in 1970 was based on the firm conviction
that researchers and innovators of the
countries of the South had to take the initiative to produce knowledge and apply it
for the benefit of their people.
Canada’s position was as follows: yes,
research would be a tremendous spur for
development, but it would be the countries of the South which would set it
going and run it! In other words, Canada,
through the IRDC, was going to support
We worked closely with an IRD researcher,
the sorely missed Marc Roulet, associated
with work on mercury in the Amazon,
and with other research that we financed
in Ecuador. Another of your specialist
experts, Robert d’Ercole, is helping us to
strengthen the scientific process of a project concerning, among other things, vulnerability to natural disasters in the shanty towns of Lima.
Our representatives in Dakar are currently
in discussion with those of IRD to find
ways of encouraging cooperation
between the two organizations and a
better complementarity in West Africa. It
is with this in mind that the IRDC and the
IRD recently signed an agreement aiming
to establish possible joint operations in all
developing regions.
We are convinced that this closer relationship can give rise to research projects and
activities which will reinforce the capacities of research teams from countries of
the South.
p. 2 News
p. 4 Partners
The illusion of a regulated
market
A network of excellence
for marine ecosystems
T
F
he Convention on Biological Diversity
adopted at the 1992 Rio Earth
Summit banked on the markets for the
protection of the biodiversity and guaranteeing the equity of exchanges between
users and holders of this new resource.
Under
the
impulse of IRD
researchers, a
team of scientists is examining the
rather patchy
results of the
past 15 years
of practice.
aced with the dwindling of fishing
resources that is already in evidence, it
is essential to find ways
of forecasting how
marine ecosystems will
react to overexploitation
of certain species and to
global warming. The
network of excellence
named EUR-OCEANS (European Network of
Excellence for Ocean
Ecosystems Analysis) has
taken up this challenge.
It brings together over
620 members from
© IRD/D. Buchillet
* IRD Member of the board of
trusteed.
T
© IFAN/M.Gueye
he current food crisis is the
expression of a maladjustment
between supply and demand seen
in trends operating at global and
regional scales. It is illustrated by a
60% increase in the FAO food price
index over just one year and a
strong upsurge in the price of cereals and dairy products. Current
prices show in part the impact of
speculation, probably fuelled by
cash investments reoriented from a
difficult property sector. However,
they also reflect some deeply serious trends: population pressure and
accelerating urbanization; growth
of the emergent countries and
strong surge in demand from middle classes, cost increases linked to
the oil crisis, competition from biofuels, climatic hazards (Australian
cereal production has for example
collapsed after six consecutive years
of drought) and, over the longer
term, the still uncertain impact of
global warming on agricultural production, which the journal Science
reviews in its February issue.
In the short term, this perturbation
is increasing the penury suffered by
the poorest, particularly in the
cities. Not all countries have been
hit to the same degree, but the
worsening of poverty and the
human and social risks evidently call
for emergency measures to be
taken: well targeted food aid and
social transfer.
In the long term, the price rises can
constitute a chance for agricultural
production in Africa, provided that
the producers benefit from them
and that the infrastructures make
access to markets possible.
Research and development must
hold an important place in the
adaptation of seeds and production
methods to the challenges of global warming, whether it involves
changes in temperature, water
stress, or changes and developments in diseases and parasites.
The industrialized countries have a
major responsibility in all these areas
in terms of finance and support.
©IRD/O. Dargouge
T
Nothing wasted, everything
can be processed!
he severe violence that occurred in
Kenya over the contested December
2007 presidential election falls into a context where construction of identity, combat
for territorial control and political conquest
are intermingled. A characteristic aspect of
the violent incidents, as with those the
country experienced in the 1990s, is the
local rooting of the conflicts, around political and land-tenure issues, in relation to a
national election. In addition, this episode
carries an urban dimension, which did not
emerge during past flare-ups. These territorial anchorages, which make the crisis take
on a potential local autonomy, bear the
dual mark of colonial history and that of
the political regimes that succeeded it.
among 66 scientific organizations from
25 countries including 16 European ones.
In France, the CEA, the CNRS, Ifremer and IRD
are involved, while the Institut Universitaire
Européen de la Mer at Brest is hosting the
programme.
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site: http://www.ird.fr
© IRD/A. Bertrand
What is your idea
of development in
the Countries of the South?
© CRDI/Jason Taylor
By Pierre Jacquet*,
chief economist
at the Agence
Française de
Développement.
p. 11 Valorisation
the South in its search for solutions by
providing technical and financial support.
I am certain that this way of perceiving
development is essential for the independence of societies and the emergence of
democracy.
©IRD/S. Hem
p. 1, 15 Interview with Maureen O’Neil,
President of IRDC
© AFD
p. 1 Editorial