Why Information Matters: A Foundation for Resilience

Embracing Change: The Critical Role of Information, a research project by the Internews' Center for Innovation & Learning, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, combines Internews' longstanding effort to highlight the important role ofinformation with Rockefeller's groundbreaking work on resilience. The project focuses on three major aspects:- Building knowledge around the role of information in empowering communities to understand and adapt to different types of change: slow onset, long-term, and rapid onset / disruptive;- Identifying strategies and techniques for strengthening information ecosystems to support behavioral adaptation to disruptive change; and- Disseminating knowledge and principles to individuals, communities, the private sector, policymakers, and other partners so that they can incorporate healthy information ecosystems as a core element of their social resilience strategies

Building Climate Change Resilience

Outlines the foundation's five-year initiative to test and promote local approaches to planning for and adapting to climate change and to raise awareness of the need to invest in building such resilience. Includes links to Rockefeller-supported research

Symposium on Indigenous Scholarship: The Centrality of Culture and Indigenous Values

The trend of globalization has led to a strong demand for the culture-specific or emic approach in scholarly research. It is the purpose of this paper to provide an opportunity for scholars to have their voices on the issues of indigenous scholarship. The paper consists of four essays examining the theme from four aspects, namely, the centrality of culture and communication, the Asiacentric communication paradigm, the development of Chinese communication theories, and an indigenous view of the study of resilience. It is hoped that the paper will contribute to the better understanding of indigenous scholarship and further provide a possible direction for the future investigation in this line of research

Driving improvements in emerging disease surveillance through locally-relevant capacity strengthening

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) threaten the health of people, animals, and crops globally, but our ability to predict their occurrence is limited. Current public health capacity and ability to detect and respond to EIDs is typically weakest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Many known drivers of EID emergence also converge in LMICs. Strengthening capacity for surveillance of diseases of relevance to local populations can provide a mechanism for building the cross-cutting and flexible capacities needed to tackle both the burden of existing diseases and EID threats. A focus on locally relevant diseases in LMICs and the economic, social, and cultural contexts of surveillance can help address existing inequalities in health systems, improve the capacity to detect and contain EIDs, and contribute to broader global goals for development

Securing the Livelihoods and Nutritional Needs of Fish-Dependent Communities

Starting in June 2012, the Rockefeller Foundation began investigating the pressing problem of the declining health of the oceans due to climate change, overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction, and the effects of this decline on poor and vulnerable people who depend on marine ecosystems for food and livelihoods. The goal was to better understand the nature of the problem and the potential impact of interventions in the fields of fisheries, aquaculture, poverty, and food security.The Foundation assembled a portfolio of learning grants that examined this problem from multiple perspectives in order to inform and assess the viability of and potential impact for future engagement on this topic. We supported four scoping studies that sought to identify populations dependent on marine fisheries, as well as review past experience with integrated approaches to fisheries management within a livelihoods and food security context. In partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, we also supported scoping work in four countries to assess opportunities for a coordinated strategy integrating national policy, local management, and innovative financing.We have learned a tremendous amount from the work our grantees have done, captured here by partner FSG in a summary and synthesis. We hope this information will contribute to the broader body of knowledge on this topic, as well as our own work

Stewarding Biodiversity and Food Security in The Coral Triangle: Achievements, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

The management team of the US Agency for International Development (USAID)- supported Coral Triangle Support Partnership (CTSP) commissioned this report to take a qualitative look at the achievements, challenges, and lessons learned from investment in CTSP. CTSP is part of a broader USAID investment supporting the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security (CTI-CFF), a six-nation effort to sustain vital marine and coastal resources in the Coral Triangle located in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific

Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India

The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India

Shipbuilding 4.0 Index Approaching Supply Chain

The shipbuilding industry shows a special interest in adapting to the changes proposed by the industry 4.0. This article bets on the development of an index that indicates the current situation considering that supply chain is a key factor in any type of change, and at the same time it serves as a control tool in the implementation of improvements. The proposed indices provide a first definition of the paradigm or paradigms that best fit the supply chain in order to improve its sustainability and a second definition, regarding the key enabling technologies for Industry 4.0. The values obtained put shipbuilding on the road to industry 4.0 while suggesting categorized planning of technologies