INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION NETWORK

The International Development Information Network (IDIN) is a decentralized
continuation of an activity originally started by the OECD to maintain
databases on development activities: research projects, research and
training institutes, and experts in the field of economic and social
development. 

By Tinka Ewoldt-Leicher

Since 1989 data on development activities have been gathered and processed
in the 5 regions of the International Co-ordinating Committee of
Development Associations (ICCDA): Africa, the Arab region, Asia, Latin
America and Europe, resulting in worldwide, interregional databases for
research projects, institutes, and experts. The worldwide databases are
located and maintained in Tilburg, at the Development Research Institute,
which is responsible for the European part of IDIN. At this moment
information on more than 8,000 research projects, 3,500 institutes, and
some 750 (European) experts is available to the development research
community. The coverage of the data is continuallly expanding in numbers,
topics and geographical areas.

What type of questions can be answered by IDIN? Some examples:
Your institute is searching for a counterpart in Africa to carry out a
collaborative research project.
The director of an institute in Africa will visit your institute. You want
to have more information on its activities and staff.
You want to locate researchers on certain subjects.
You want to know what type of projects an international donor has financed
over the last 5 years.

It is also possible to detect certain trends in development research by
extracting statistical information from the databases: e.g. comparison of
the numbers of agricultural projects in Africa and Latin America. In
addition IDIN is strenuously promoting co-operative research between the
regions and facilitating state-of-the-art papers on specific subjects,
based on information from the IDIN databases, supplemented by recent
bibliographical information. Recently studies on 'ethnicity' and
'governance' have been carried out. A study on 'poverty' is planned for
this year, in co-operation with the Co-operative Research on Poverty (CROP)
team.
One of the most important tools in co-operative research is the use of
modern communications technology, such as electronic mail and electronic
networking. The partners in IDIN are already using this tool in the
exchange of information and data.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
International Development Information Network (IDIN)
Development Research Institute
P.O. Box 90153
5000 LE Tilburg
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-13-662576
Fax: +31-13-663015
E-mail: EWOLDT@KUB.NL