Positive assessment of research partnerships in developing countries
Published: Thursday, Apr 18th 2024, 08:10
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Building materials made from coconut fibers and vocational training in Costa Rica and Nepal: after more than ten years, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) are drawing a positive conclusion from their joint funding initiative for research partnerships between Switzerland and countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The "Swiss Program for Research on Global Issues for Development" (r4d program) has delivered sustainable solutions around the world, the SNSF announced on Thursday. "It has developed innovative solutions for poverty reduction," Odile Robert from the SDC was quoted as saying in the press release.
With a total budget of CHF 97 million, the now completed program funded a total of 57 research projects on global topics related to poverty reduction in low- and middle-income countries.
This includes a research project conducted by Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) together with researchers in the Philippines, in which panels made from coconut fibers were developed for the interior construction of houses. According to the SNSF, around five million tons of coconut fibres are harvested in the Philippines every year. The project uses this potential to produce cost-effective building materials locally and for local use.
A project by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), together with local partners, investigated how vocational education and training is organized in Costa Rica, Chile, Nepal and Benin and how it could be improved. According to the SNSF, this led to the establishment of new courses of study at Kathmandu University in Nepal and the public university of Costa Rica.
"Half of the r4d projects supported researchers in Switzerland and half in the Global South," explained Robert in the press release. "In this way, local expertise was built up and solutions developed."
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