SciDev.Net

The Information for Development Program (infoDev), run by the World Bank, coordinates action between multilateral and bilateral donors and forms partnerships with public and private organisations to maximise the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

It publishes news, briefing papers, toolkits, reports and videos about key issues and projects and provides coverage of recent and ongoing infoDev activities.

infoDev covers three themes: access for all; mainstreaming ICT; and innovation, entrepreneurship and growth. These encompass topics such as rural livelihoods, health, governance, and monitoring and evaluation.

The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF) was established in June 2008 to provide accessible funding for projects that avoid deforestation and contribute to poverty alleviation in the Congo Basin. This multi-donor fund is run by a governing council supported by a secretariat based at the African Development Bank. The website provides reasons for establishing the fund, its proposal process and an overview of projects that have received funding.

EdStats, developed by the World Bank, collects data on education from national reports, UNESCO (UN Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to provide educational statistics for over 200 countries and regions.

It also includes World Bank public expenditure data from 2002 onwards as well as projections of educational attainment and enrolment rates until 2050.

Data can be custom searched but is also available in pre-defined reports by country or topic, for example on the Millennium Development Goals or private education expenditure.

The IDS, a statistics service from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is an online database of the volume, origin and types of aid and resource flows to over 150 developing countries.

The data are collected from official statistical reports submitted to the OECD by members of its Development Assistance Committee and include figures on official development assistance, other official flows and private funding.

A Creditor Reporting System provides further data on where aid goes, what purposes it serves and what policies it aims to implement.

WOTRO is the science division within the Netherlands Organizations for Scientific Research (NWO), and supports scientific research on development issues, in particular poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

The mission of WOTRO is to initiate, enhance and fund scientific research for the benefit of development and societal issues of local and global concern in developing countries. WOTRO acts at the interface of the Dutch government, the academic world and the arena of development organisations. Its scope includes all low and middle-income countries, and it receives substantial funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The PHEA — a joint project between seven private US foundations — supports higher education development in Africa. It works in four specific areas: developing and retaining new academics; information and communication technologies for higher education; regional institutional capacity building; and higher education research and analysis.

Within each of these, the PHEA publishes news and information on its projects, highlighting case studies and achievements to date. The PHEA also hosts a database of past and current grants, which, between 2000 and 2008, represent investments of over US$350 million.

The World Bank's education gateway summarises the bank's activities in all areas of education, including higher education (HE). It publishes information on the key issues that influence how it supports HE in developing countries, as well as ongoing projects, speeches, events and recent publications.

The bank also hosts EdStats, a database of statistics on education indicators, including enrolment and completion rates, graduates per subject area and public expenditure on education.

The UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme) was established in July 2008, to help establish a REDD programme within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This website provides information on programme donors and projects, as well as links to other relevant sites and documents.

The foundation's aim is to raise awareness of diabetes worldwide, with a special emphasis on developing countries. A key activity is funding projects (142 so far) that raise awareness, improve education and build capacity at local, regional and global levels. The website contains details of all ongoing projects, including details of the project budgets and individuals responsible for running them, the expected impacts and results so far. Importantly, the foundation prioritises monitoring and evaluation of its projects to learn key lessons for the future and minimise the risk of project failure.

As with any disease, and particularly those in developing countries, the health economics are important. The website has a useful tool for calculating the economic cost of diabetes in a particular country that allows the user to change variables such as population, prevalence and so on.