Essay on Climatic Change: What IDRC Can Contribute?

The adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change has created new opportunities for addressing the impacts of climate change. Thus, a new demand for research on climate change by IDRC has emerged. Specifically, the demand is high in thematic areas of climate change like women and girls' empowerment, climate-smart agriculture, complement adaptation with mitigation, and health systems. Also, there is a new demand for research in geographic areas that have expanded work.

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The thematic entry points of IDRC include areas like urban adaptation to climate change, hotspots for climate change, disease outbreak, poor quality of urban air, the link between gender and climate, financing of climate, migration of climate, food insecurity, threats related to climate change, and services and science of climate. The thematic areas have established platforms for IDRC to programming in the future.

Recently, research in IDRC has started to follow the interdisciplinary approach. It involves the implementation of practice and policy knowledge. Also, it consists of the integration of social and natural sciences. Admittedly, IDRC mainly focuses on rural issues. However, the organization has implemented projects on the urban environment which has enabled it to gain expertise in such a sophisticated setting. Consequently, IDRC has positively influenced lives, helped communities to find better sources of livelihood, allowed improved leadership, and created new climate adaptation funding. Apart from increasing the effectiveness of IDRC programs, these initiatives have created platforms for the establishment of future programs hence creating mileage for the organization in its projects of climate change.

Although our work primarily focuses on adaptation, there are plans to prioritize climate change mitigation which, judging by recent global climate change issues, are urgent. They will create logical complementation for the organization. Being that numerous adaptation strategies involve mitigation alternatives, the support for combined adaptation and mitigation has significantly increased in the South. Mitigation options are based on land, energy areas, and water. Therefore, to enable IDRC to create solutions and improve local resilience to international commitments, the organization will support projects on combined mitigation and adaptation solutions. Consequently, the thematic width in skills institutional works, energy, forests, and water will increase and improve the application of research.

Innovative last mile research is one of the core values of research by IDRC. Innovative last mile research involves creating and transmitting knowledge that will lead to the improvement of funding solutions, eliminate the challenges to the application of the solutions, and improve solutions related to funding. Knowledge on innovative last mile research is required because it provides answers to the numerous questions of decision-makers and enables the latter to make a positive decision that will improve livelihoods. Apart from targeting the best strategies and mechanisms, it allows the decision-maker to find the right partner in either public or private sector, for funding, upscaling, and application. Although there are limits in research based on lack of early development in some thematic areas related to economic, technical, or social solutions, IDRC can support research on the regions. However, this is only possible if there is a clear vision of how the answers are going to be applied and scaled.

Although there is still a need for evidence on numerous technical fields, there is strong evidence on the challenges that may render the projects unsuccessful. However, the barriers have enabled IDRC to create policy design which increases the success of research in climate change by eliminating the obstacles challenging the implementation.

Another important strategy that IDRC has been using and is likely to continue using is capacity building. The organization hopes to continue establishing links between the desired impacts and outcomes of developments, and capacity needs. Thus, capacity building will improve various outcomes of various research projects.

The success of IDRC based on geographic opportunities is evident from its long track record of success of projects in South Asia, East Africa, West Africa, and Latin America. However, there is an opportunity to ensure that projects are implemented in strategic regions and there is consolidated regional focus and integration of work. Additionally, there is a need to exploit strong opportunities for research in areas like South East Asia, Cuba, Haiti, West Africa, and the Caribbean. The areas are at the highest risk of exposure to the effects of climate change and have low levels of development. Thus, IDRC needs to implement research in these areas.

IDRC wants to implement research projects that will positively influence the empowerment of girls and women. Admittedly, in every community, girls and women are usually the groups that are vulnerable to climate change. However, they have the highest potential to create positive change through their wealth of knowledge. Therefore, IDRC needs to strengthen the capacities of women and men, train on leadership development, and identify the barriers that hinder the inclusion of women and girls the control of resources and decision-making. It will increase resilience at IDRC intensify the participation of women in the decision on critical issues. Consequently, it will increase opportunities for women and girls, and allow for equal control over land, food, and money.

A territory defines a complex system. It involves socio-ecosystem, natural resources, and food, health, and energy services related to the ecosystem. A complex system is subject to the outcome of the interaction of society, economy, culture, and policy. For example, to improve the consumption of food, it is important to manage water resources. It occurs when an interaction of technological elements like infrastructure and hydrology, power, equity, private sector interests, investments, governance, costs, and control interact. In this context, climate change becomes a change factor social aspect of the eco-system. Also, it increases the possibility of conflicts. If the organization researches on approaches to applying or scale to improve the interaction of different factors or establish how the elements create barriers for solutions that have been proposed, it creates complexities. Consequently, climate change becomes an indirect factor of change and shifts focus to the state of well-being of people. The approach is more effective in a regional approach which has complex systems that are linked to geographic areas and can be determined by both biophysical and socio-economic interactions.

Conclusion

IDRC research is based on numerous themes. It is because the organization recognizes that climate change affects the population of humans because of complex systems of interaction. As such, IDRC themes vary from agriculture, value chains, livestock, land management, water, food, heat stress, land management, public and private climate financing, risk reduction of disaster, migration, to human rights. The wide range enables IDRC to form collaborations with external partners. The partnerships will allow the organization to improve its effectiveness and increase its expertise.