Ruminations Spring 2009

The program is led by the University of California, Davis, and is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). One of the key research projects under the GL-CRSP is the Enhancing Child Nutrition through Animal Source Food Management (ENAM) project, which aims to improve child nutrition in Ghana. The ENAM project is led by Anna Lartey, a Co-Principal Investigator of the GL-CRSP, who has been named the International Development Research Centre's (IDRC) Research Chair in Nutrition for Health and Socio-economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lartey will partner with Grace Marquis, a Canada Research Chair in Social and Environmental Aspects of Nutrition, to conduct research on improving child nutrition, especially in vulnerable and HIV-affected households, and reversing rates of childhood obesity in urban areas. The GL-CRSP has also been involved in other research projects, including the HIV Nutrition Project (HNP), which is a randomized nutrition feeding intervention that evaluates the effect of protein quality and micronutrients in meat on the health and nutritional well-being of drug-naïve women living with HIV in rural Kenya and the health and development of their vulnerable children. The project has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for four years at $250,000 per year of direct costs. In addition to research projects, the GL-CRSP has also supported the education and training of students in developing countries. Since 1998, the program has supported 475 students at the undergraduate and graduate levels with research training, funding, and support. One of the students supported by the GL-CRSP is Stacy Lynn, who was a team member of the GL-CRSP POLEYC project and received degree training in ecology through Colorado State University. Lynn's research focused on conservation and land-use change in Tanzania, and she has since become a researcher in her own right, working on projects related to ecology and conservation. The GL-CRSP is also hosting a capstone conference in June 2009 at Lake Naivasha, Kenya, which will highlight programmatic achievements, discuss lessons learned, and identify major challenges of conducting international development research. The conference will feature presentations, panel discussions, and posters on various themes, including agriculture, human health, and nutrition, research for development, peacebuilding, conflict, and development, risk and changing livelihoods, and gender integration and perspectives. The conference will also provide opportunities for researchers to share their work and network with colleagues from around the world. In addition, the GL-CRSP is offering travel awards to authors submitting gender-related poster presentations and students submitting poster presentations. The conference is expected to be a major event in the field of international development research and will provide a platform for researchers to share their findings and discuss the challenges and opportunities in the field.