Latin America contributes almost 10% of total global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), mostly from the energy sector, agriculture, and land use. The latter two account for 56% of total GHGs in the region, compared to the global average of 22%. With the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the world coexisting with persistent undernutrition and climate change, Latin America is emblematic of these interrelated health and environmental issues. Yet, it is also a region with a growing community of academic, advocacy, and policy players that have enabled leading policies and experiences aligned with a healthy food systems framework.

In parallel to the Rockefeller Foundation and IDRC partnership work on healthy and sustainable food systems in East Africa, Wellcome and IDRC will support the development of an agenda for action for a transition to a health-promoting and climate friendly food system in Latin America. A multidisciplinary coalition of researchers across the region will review the evidence on how to accelerate the transition to healthy sustainable food systems that prioritize access to healthy and affordable diets, while keeping GHG emissions within sustainable limits. They will analyze the underlying political economy that may prevent or enable rapid action.

Expected outcomes include a collective agenda for advocacy and action on healthy sustainable food systems, developed in collaboration with change agents across the region, particularly in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The project will also develop targeted communication about the opportunities for local change, contribute to global leadership from Latin Americans, and ensure visibility and discussion of an agenda for action at the national, regional, and international level.

This project establishes Results for Development (R4D) as the coordinating organization for the Rapid and Responsive Evidence Partnership (RREP). Jointly funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and IDRC, the partnership supports 11 country teams in low- and middle-income countries to promote and facilitate the use of evidence in decision-making by policymakers and stakeholders across sectors.

The coordinating organization will promote collaboration and learning among RREP’s diverse partners to amplify the impact of each team’s work and generate lessons about evidence-informed policymaking. R4D will organize annual in-person workshops, mechanisms, and platforms for regular communication and learning between and among RREP members and communicate RREP’s impacts and lessons to external audiences. R4D will also oversee strategic project management and visioning with the partnership and promote the partnership’s longer-term sustainability.

Little is known about the behavioural and environmental risk factors of COVID-19 because of a lack of high-quality epidemiological data. Although early reports found associations between COVID-19 and smoking, obesity, and cardiovascular conditions, these findings are not consistent and there is no clear scientific consensus about the underlying risk factors that increase the risk of COVID-19. Moreover, the long-term effects of COVID-19 on cardiovascular and respiratory health are unclear.

This project aims to examine the factors that increase or reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection, in addition to the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on respiratory and cardiovascular health. It will study 35,000 adults from 13 countries who have already been recruited into the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology Study, an international study assessing the health of 200,000 people from 28 countries worldwide. Participants will be tested for COVID-19 and assessed for behavioural and physical risk factors such as smoking, alcohol use, or low physical activity. Clinical examination and patient monitoring will assess the impact of COVID-19 on respiratory function, as well as on the risk of longer-term cardiovascular or lung conditions. The study findings will provide valuable knowledge on the risk factors of COVID-19 and the potentially harmful long-term consequences of the disease.

This project was selected through the COVID-19 May 2020 Rapid Research Funding Opportunity, coordinated by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in partnership with IDRC and several other health research funding agencies across Canada

Building on their existing commitments to advance the timely and effective use of evidence in policy and decision-making, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and IDRC have jointly increased their support to the Rapid and Responsive Evidence Partnership of teams in low- and middle-income countries. This partnership facilitates the use of evidence by policymakers and stakeholders to clarify priority development problems and causes, frame options to address them, and identify implementation considerations in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia.

Building on the experiences and expertise of these country teams in informing health policies, a number of health sector mechanisms will be adapted and used to contribute to the evidence uptake in a variety of other sectors. Examples of such mechanisms include rapid response services, stakeholder dialogues, and citizen panels. The project will study if and how these mechanisms work and will examine their effectiveness in facilitating the use of evidence by policymakers in the health and non-health sectors.

This project will foster sharing and learning, research quality, coordination, and communications to enhance the effectiveness and impact of the Rapid and Responsive Evidence Partnership.

In Latin America, the increased release of open government data aims to strengthen the transparency and accountability of governments, build new business opportunities, and improve services for citizens. This project will explore innovative approaches for using and understanding public data to promote more inclusive government services and policies, address rights and disinformation challenges, and enhance gender equality. It will focus on three major areas: gender-based violence, assistance to migrants, and emergency procurement.

To address the challenge of gender-based violence in Latin America, notably femicides, the project will examine how newly released official government data can be used to end violence against women through innovative approaches. With respect to migrants, growing civic unrest and massive economic disparities have led to a major increase in irregular migration in some countries. The project will begin to explore the challenges of taking a data-focused approach to supporting the needs of migrants and displaced peoples. This research will emphasize human rights, combatting misinformation and xenophobia, and facilitating better services for communities in need.

Finally, the pandemic has caused an enormous increase in emergency procurement, which, when poorly managed, can negatively impact the delivery of crucial services and goods. The Open Contracting Partnership will support action research to make emergency procurement more inclusive, effective, and efficient in the context of COVID-19. Further, since only an estimated 1% of public contracts go to women-owned businesses, the research will explore key barriers and gaps for this group in bidding for public contracts.

This project is part of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) program, a global network using data to promote social good. The OD4D network is funded by IDRC, Global Affairs Canada, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
 

This project seeks to understand how governments and citizen groups have organized responses to the COVID-19 crisis, and the social, political, and institutional dynamics that shaped responses in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. It will assess how the pandemic and the responses to the crisis have affected the social contract between citizens and the state as well as the social cohesion among citizens.

The project places a special emphasis on how the pandemic has affected the ability of women and vulnerable populations to shape strategies in the context of the already high poverty rates of women, Indigenous people, and those of African descent. The groups most vulnerable to the economic and health impacts of COVID-19 are also the most likely to be politically marginalized during the crisis.

The project’s aim is to support improvements in the policies and practices of engagement with vulnerable groups for both civil society organizations and government agencies. It will identify both failings and innovations in governance by examining practices of citizen engagement, distinct political arrangements, approaches to policy co-creation, and the use of technology as a tool for connecting state agencies and policymakers to the public. It will highlight models of leadership and governance in response to the crisis. It aims to strengthen civil society-led initiatives, incorporate new innovations, and help mobilize the agency of vulnerable groups. Finally, the activities will inform discussions about how to revitalize democratic politics amid declining public trust in traditional political institutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic and confinement are causing severe disruption to labour markets and food security in Latin America, exacerbating structural labour market challenges such as informality, inequality, and low productivity. Millions of workers are left unprotected, highlighting the need to strengthen social protection systems. The impact on the food system is exacerbating inefficiencies and inequalities, putting the livelihoods of small producers and access to healthy food for poor consumers at risk. So far, most Latin American governments have failed to enact policy measures to tackle these problems.

This project will support evidence, technical assistance, and a pilot of policy responses addressing food systems, labour market challenges, and social protection that emphasize gender and diversity. It will propose timely and cost-effective policy responses to foster food security and more efficient and inclusive traditional food markets; support the design and piloting of innovative social protection programs to reach informal workers; and inform temporary employment policies for Latin America to reduce the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and to promote a more equitable and sustainable recovery. The project will also have global reach and foster Southern researchers’ visibility and leadership, with at least 15 scholars from the region engaging on global policy dialogues on COVID-19 responses.

The project will be implemented in Peru, Ecuador, and two additional Latin American countries that will be selected according to the impact of the pandemic, potential for policy impact, and research capacities.

The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the livelihoods and food security of millions of people. Family farming provides a significant share of the food supply and has an important role in the transition toward sustainable agri-food systems and the fight against a possible food crisis. This sector is facing multiple challenges that are exacerbated under the current pandemic.

This project, implemented in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico, will generate evidence and promote changes to agri-food systems in the aftermath of the pandemic. It will contribute to mitigating the impact on food security and consumption patterns of the most vulnerable, with an emphasis on women. It will promote small- and medium-scale farming, in addition to agri-food systems that are more sustainable, gender-sensitive, inclusive, and resilient to shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic, like climate change and other major threats, is pervasive worldwide. This recognition is at the core of the UN’s 2030 Agenda and embedded within each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet a clear understanding of our shared threats and the means to mitigate them is less well developed. This is in part because the required structures for government science advice are often weak or absent, particularly in the Global South.

Since 2014, the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) has been at the vanguard of global efforts to instil evidence-based policymaking by drawing on national science systems as a major part of efforts to advance the SDGs. These efforts included a three-year IDRC-funded initiative from 2017 to support research, training, and networking in the Global South, under the auspices of the International Science Council. In 2020, INGSA’s work has taken a new and urgent turn in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic, acting as a conduit between national public health agencies and research organizations and establishing a platform of information sharing and data collection about how related policy decisions are being made.

This project will build on INGSA’s earlier work involving the Global South and on its initial efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will focus on ideas, institutions, individuals, and modes of integration that can greatly enhance how science advice occurs in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, with an emphasis on responses to the pandemic and to emergencies more generally. It will support a comprehensive comparative study of COVID-19 responses through original research, including the creation of a new global platform for tracking related policies as well as “deep-dive” case studies. This will help governments better prepare for transnational crises by using high-quality scientific evidence.

In parallel, the project will pilot a regional network of high-level science advisors linked to a policy intelligence platform for Southeast Asia and explore scaling out possibilities for other regions. Finally, it will rely on INGSA’s three regional chapters in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to generate new knowledge and regional insights, promote science advice to policymakers, and integrate information across regions, with an early emphasis on COVID-19.