Friday 19 December 2008

The ELDIS service for searching resources on African agricultural research


Eldis is one of a family of knowledge services from the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex.
Eldis is core funded by Sida, Norad, SDC and DFID.

The aim of Eldis is to:
  • support the documentation, exchange and use of evidence-based development knowledge
  • communicate this knowledge effectively through a range of appropriately designed services, using the Internet (web and email) as the main communication medium for delivery
  • reach audiences of researchers, development practitioners and policy formers at national and international levels
  • play a role in the processes of evidence-based policy formation
  • provide this information and services free of charge at point of use

What does Eldis offer?

  • 26,000 full text documents free to downloadWe maintain an ever-growing collection of editorially selected and abstracted full-text, online documents selected by our editors from more than 7,500 different publishers. All documents are available free of charge
  • Eldis resource guides Our 24 subject-focused guides offer quick access to key documents, organisations, research themes, discussions and other key resources
  • Eldis country profiles Quick access to our database arranged by country, plus quick links to country briefing services on other websites
  • Eldis email newsletters Our email news services bring the latest research to your mail-box on 35 topics
  • Eldis newsfeeds Add an Eldis RSS newsfeed to your website or newsreader for the latest information on 25 topics
  • News, events and jobs Our selection of recent development news, announcements, email newsletters and job adverts

Hereunder follows a FARA video interview with the Kenyan Fatema Rajabali of the ELDIS service of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex

Fatema Rajabali explains how the ELDIS service can be useful for African agricultural research actors. The interview focused on resources on Climate Adaptation following a two-day workshop in Brighton (28-29 October 2008) between the AfricaAdapt project, the Linking Climate Adaptation (LCA)/Eldis-proejct from IDS; the WeAdapt -project from the SEI; and the Adaptation Learning Mechanism (ALM) from UNDP.

She answers the question if African authors should not be more prominent on the web with their research findings on agricultural research in Africa.