Research and Development Impact

Case Study 1: Treating Female Drug Users in Iran

Until 2007 there were no drug services for women in Iran, let alone services designed for female sex workers and prisoners. Following the success of a pilot clinic established by UNSW Professor Kate Dolan, seventeen years later there are now 20 similar drug treatment clinics across the country, providing services to more than 6,000 women.

Case Study 2: Improving Conditions for Sex Workers in Fiji

Professor Heather Worth and Dr Karen McMillan have been collecting evidence that gives sex workers in Fiji information to advocate for their own rights for over a decade. Their flagship publications have helped to shift public and policy maker perceptions about sex work and have illustrated how ‘bad law’ can increase the risk of violence and HIV transmission in this group.

Case Study 3: Expanded Aquaculture Improves Nutrition, Livelihoods, and Social Cohesion in Papua New Guinea

Research into improved aquaculture methods, combined with sustained community outreach activities, has supported the dramatic expansion of fish farming in Papua New Guinea. Over the past decade the number of fishponds has grown from an estimated 7,000 to over 60,000. In turn, fish farming has contributed to substantial improvements in household nutrition, income generation, and social cohesion.

Case Study 4: Point-of-care HPV ‘Test and Treat’ for Cervical Screening in Papua New Guinea and Other High-burden Settings

Through the application of a new point-of-care HPV test and treat strategy, cervical cancer incidence and mortality in Papua New Guinea can be halved if 70% of women aged 30-59 years were screened just twice in their lifetime. In the last 10 years, Professor Andrew Vallely and his team at the PNG Institute of Medical Research have established a new international collaborative research program in Papua New Guinea and led the search for new cervical screening strategies in low- and middle-income countries.

Case Study 5: Farmers as Filmmakers: Participatory Video for Postharvest Needs Analysis in Sierra Leone

Farmers in the Sierra Leone’s rural North-Western Province need to increase knowledge of and capacity for proper post- harvest handling and processing methods, which affects returns on their work. Dr. Alec Thornton and his research partners at Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute and Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone) conducted a scoping study using video as a key method in a participatory rural appraisal in the Kambia District. The goal was to determine the technology and training needs of rural rice farmers to reduce post-harvest losses and improve rice quality.

Case Study 6: Recognising Indigenous Intellectual Property

Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) is a legally recognised system that seeks to ensure benefits from research on Indigenous knowledge of genetic material is shared. Professor Daniel Robinson manages an ABS Capacity Development Initiative (ABS Initiative) in the Pacific region. The project implements the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which seeks to ensure fair and equitable benefit-sharing arising from the use of biological resources and Indigenous/traditional knowledge for research and development purposes.

Dr Valentina Baú

Valentina conducts research on the application of Communication for Development in Peacebuilding with a focus on realities affected by violent conflict. She explores and evaluates new communication for development approaches that employ different media and communication channels to contribute to social change and sustainable peace in the aftermath of (or during) violence. She also looks at the application of communication for development for citizen engagement and youth participation in governance and peacebuilding. Her more recent work has begun to explore the use of Communication for Development in the context of crisis response interventions, with the aim of developing new frameworks that can link the implementation of applied research with the production of theoretical knowledge, whose translation can inform practice.

Associate Professor Anne Bartlett

Anne Bartlett has worked on Sudan, South Sudan and East Africa for over 18 years. Her research centers on a number of key areas: conflict, humanitarian crises, forced displacement and its impacts on land use, resource extraction and urbanization. Bartlett has conducted ethnographic research with the armed movements of Darfur to understand how human rights abuses, underdevelopment and lack of political recognition on the part of the government, impacted the uprising in the region. Other work in Nyala, Darfur, showed how war, the influx of IDPs and humanitarian aid impacted host communities in terms of the livelihoods, the morphology of the city and the landscape ecology of the surrounding area. Bartlett has also worked on cross-comparative projects between Nyala and El-Obeid, Kordofan, Sudan to understand the effects of conflict on labor markets

Michael Burnside

Michael has community development experience in West Africa, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the Pacific. He has also taught international development studies in both the classroom at UNSW and in India with Engineers Without Borders. Michael joined the Institute for Global Development to ensure important ideas and research are realised. He holds a Master of International Development and a Graduate Certificate in Disaster Risk Reduction.

Honorary Associate Professor Sarah Cook

Sarah Cook is currently an IGD Research to Practice Associate and Honorary Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW. She was previously the inaugural Director for the Institute for Global Development at UNSW. Prior to that she spent almost 10 years leading research institutes within the UN - as the Director of UNICEF’s Office of Research / Innocenti Research Centre, in Florence, Italy and from 2009-2015 as Director, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva.

Kirsten Ridley

Kirsten has more than a decade of experience working in international development, humanitarian response, and social enterprise sector development. An experienced facilitator, evaluator and MEL advisor, she has worked with a range of Australian and international NGOs, including Charitable Recycling Australia, Caritas Australia, Action Contre la Faim Bangladesh, and the School for Social Entrepreneurs. When not at UNSW she volunteers on the Programs Advisory Committee of the Australian Himalayan Foundation and maintains a keen interest interest in program quality assurance and protection mainstreaming. Kirsten holds a Master in Management (Not For Profit).