IDRC's notice about the continuation of the ATSA project: many questions still pending.

IDRC's notice published on their website explains they "are re-allocating other IDRC funds to this priority area in order to honour its grant agreements with researchers in relation to ATSA".

How much money is IDRC "re-allocating"? What are the grants concerned? Can they all be considered as "research"? The notice does not say. Last but not least, will the African advocates accept to continue to work with IDRC while Barbara McDougall still chairs the Board of Governors? 

Notice regarding the termination of the grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the African Tobacco Situation Analyses (ATSA) initiative

 

As most of our partners associated with the ATSA project will be aware, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have terminated the grant to IDRC for the African Tobacco Situation Analyses. 

 

IDRC remains committed to working on tobacco control, an area in which it has a solid record of achievement over the last 16 years.

 

Although IDRC regrets that it has lost its funding partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the African Tobacco Situational Analyses (ATSA) project, IDRC is taking the following concrete steps to demonstrate its commitment to continuing its widely acknowledged good work on tobacco control:

1. IDRC management has decided to re-allocate other IDRC funds to this priority area in order to honour its grant agreements with researchers in relation to ATSA; this re-allocation will permit those research activities to continue as planned. The decision by IDRC management to re-allocate these funds was supported by the Executive Committee of the IDRC Board of Governors, which is allowed to act on behalf of the full Board in such situations. 
2. Furthermore, both IDRC’s Board and management have re-iterated publicly their support for IDRC’s tobacco control programming. 
3. Third, although the IDRC Board has long had a strong conflict of interest policy, the Board’s Executive Committee has decided to add to the requirements by asking all Board members to file an annual declaration on their outside activities to identify any areas of apparent, potential, or real conflict of interest, including tobacco.  This declaration would cover all areas of potential conflict of interest, given IDRC’s broad range of programming interests.
4. Finally, as IDRC updates its own code of conduct for staff  (a process already planned for 2010), IDRC will ensure conformity with the Government of Canada’s direction on FCTC Article 5.3.

IDRC remains proud of the work it has done in tobacco control over the last 16 years. We hope that we will be able to work together with our partners on the vital issue of tobacco control in the future, as we have done in the past. 

 

Grantees are welcome to contact IDRC/RITC staff with questions.