SciDev.Net

SSI was set up in 2001 to facilitate sharing of resources among research groups in Africa, Asia and Latin America in order to increase competitiveness and optimise scientific opportunities. It provides assistance for proposal development through annual workshops and helps organise annual training courses on leading-edge technology for tropical disease research application in disease endemic countries.

The principal aim of TWAS is to promote scientific capacity and sustainable development in the South through research as well as South–South and North–South collaborations. It was founded in 1983 by a group of Southern scientists, under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam, as an autonomous international organisation. Fellows are citizens of the South; associate fellows are citizens of the North who were born in the South or have made significant contributions to science in the South.

AARSE is a nongovernmental network of African scientists and professionals working in remote sensing and geographic information systems. It holds a biannual conference and runs regional and local seminars and workshops on how to use remote sensing for environmental studies.

The AARSE website publishes contact details of council members, news about developments in remote sensing that are relevant to Africa and a list of events among other information.

ACB is a nongovernmental organisation campaigning for strict biosafety regulations for genetically modified (GM) organisms in Africa.

It provides a useful overview of developments in African biosafety laws and applications of GM technology across the continent. It also hosts a large collection of related briefing documents and research papers and publishes a list of the GM field trial applications submitted in various countries together with the objections lodged against these.

APDB — established in 2002 by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the New Partnership for Africas Development — provides a forum where representatives from African governments can discuss biotechnology strategies with regional and international nongovernmental organisations.

It links to useful background documents, including the 'statement of commitments' adopted at the second APDB meeting in September 2004.

The African Union Biosafety Project — a joint initiative of the African Union and the German Development Corporation — aims to help African countries meet their obligations under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and promotes adopting the African Model Law on Safety in Biotechnology as a common framework for biosafety regulation in Africa.

The project publishes basic information on its aims, objectives and management as well as documentation about its activities and meetings. It provides copies of the Model Law in four major languages and links to related websites.

The Commission is an intergovernmental and international organisation aimed at the uplift of developing countries through applications of science and technology. Established in 1994 at the instigation of Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam, it has 21 member countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It runs meetings and workshops as well as a network of centres of excellence in selected areas of science and technology.

OpenDOAR is a directory of open access repositories — institutional and subject-based archives of academic papers, books, datasets, conferences, patents and multimedia that are free to access.

The directory covers 29 topics including agriculture, technology, health, environment and medicine in over 50 languages.

Repositories listed in the directory can be searched — and statistically analysed with the help of OpenDOAR charts — by topic, language and content or software type.

IARC's mission is to undertake research on the causes of human cancer, the mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and to develop scientific strategies for cancer control. It develops strategies at a theoretical level, however, and does not get involved in direct implementation nor contribute to the formulation of policies or legislation. The agency also does not on the whole contribute to research in to cancer treatments.

The agency publishes several key publications on epidemiology (especially of the disease in developing countries), pathology and genetics. To encourage research, the agency offers several fellowships, scholarships and training courses.

TWOWS is an international forum aimed at uniting eminent women scientists from the South with the objective of strengthening their role in development and in scientific and technological leadership. An independent, non-profit, non-governmental body based at the offices of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World in Italy, its activities include providing fellowships and maintaining an inventory of women scientists in the South.

These country-level reports, published by the Climate Systems and Policy research cluster at the University of Oxford, provide data on observed and projected climates in 52 countries in the developing world.

Each report contains maps, diagrams, tables and a narrative of the data, putting it in the context of the country's general climate. Files in text format with datasets containing underlying and model data can be downloaded for further use.

Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1978 and hosted by the UN Development Programme, the unit’s primary mandate is to promote, coordinate and support South–South cooperation and cooperation with the UN. It focuses on policy dialogue and development, public–private partnership and southern development exchange.

UNEDRA promotes collaboration among African universities in disaster risk reduction using remote sensing and geoinformation.

It publishes online training courses, runs regional workshops and provides advice on curricula development, among other activities. Information on its activities and achievements is made available through the UNEDRA website together with a list of participating universities and contact information for organisations wishing to join the network.

After the release of the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, UNEP and GRID Arendal published this set of 25 graphics focused on the special challenges that Africa faces due to expected long term climate change. 

Three sections cover the evidence of change in Africa, the science driving these changes, and vulnerability to — and trends in — extreme events on the continent. The graphics also show the severity of climate impacts on fresh water, human health, and food in Africa.

The WHO Global InfoBase has, for the first time, assembled in one place, country-level risk factor data stratified by age and sex, with complete source and survey information. The current version of the InfoBase contains over 130,000 data points from more than 2,800 sources. Currently the InfoBase contains reports on 180 out of 192 WHO Member States. A unique feature is that each record can be linked back to all its survey information, including the primary source.

The database is updated daily and provides users with comparable country-level mortality, mean systolic blood pressure, mean body mass index, and overweight/obesity data. A search function allows users to customise their data search based on specific criteria, and shows data in text tables and graphs.