The Smart Toolkit; evaluating information products and services

Communication is vital for rural development. But what makes communication effective? Who bothers to find out? Seemingly few, after all evaluation of communication tools and products is involved and complex. Thankfully some organisations involved in information documentation and dissemination have placed emphasis on evaluating the effectiveness of their products and services such as newsletters, websites, training events and databases and dossiers. The Smart Toolkit, which is a collaboration between CTA, KIT and IICD, is one example of such an evaluation toolkit. Follow the links on the left hand side of the website and it will take you to the original toolkit (which is currently being updated).

Mind the gap!

'Gapminder is a non-profit venture
promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics
and other information about social, economic and environmental development at
local, national and global levels.'

There are a range of powerful tools and resources on the website. You can select various indicators and watch how they have changed over time.

Excellent resource, try it out!

The 100 countries most vulnerable to climate change

Read here

Spotlight on biofuels

Biofuels are certainly on the agenda for the N. Ireland Rural Development Programme 2007-2011 and will certainly have impacts locally. But what about the impact of biofuels globally?

'Biofuels are described by some as absolutely catastrophic because of their
potential consequences, while others see them as the driving force for
development in some of the world's poorest regions. This edition of SciDev.Net
picks a path between "doomsayers" and "utopians", and looks at the reality of
biofuels research and development in the developing world.'

Climate change and forest genetic diversity

'Climate change is increasingly recognised as one of the most important
challenges faced globally by ecosystems and societies alike. Climate change will
alter the environmental conditions to which forest trees in Europe are adapted
and expose them to new pests and diseases. This document presents papers
from a workshop on climate change and forest genetic diversity. This set of
papers shows how climate change will create additional challenges for forest
management, with consequent impacts on the economic and social benefits that
societies and individuals derive from the forests, and on the biological
diversity in forest ecosystems.'

Read more here.

The Trouble with Travel and Trees

Many of us will be familiar with carbon off-setting schemes as a potential mechanism for the reduction of the impact of air travel on greenhouse gases and climate change. Some of you may already have opted for such off-setting when booking air travel tickets. Certainly those delegates and organisations attending the recent Bali Climate Change conference made everyone aware that they were 'minimising' any potential impact by off-setting. A recent publication from IIED however highlights that such carbon off-setting schemes, involving tree planting and forest conservation, may lead to problems for people in rural communities in developing countries. Such problems as evictions and reduced access to forest products may arise especially for people and communities who did little or nothing to contribute to the problem of climate change in the first place.

Building on our strengths

The Carnegie Trust has joined with the International Association of Community Development (IACD) to examine projects that have built on local strengths and assets to achieve rural regeneration worldwide and hopefully develop a dialogue on sharing ideas and lessons learned. Read more here.