ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. IFPRI is glad to announce two new features in this monthly newsletter: Network Profile and Institution Profile. Each month we will briefly describe a network and an institution that work in the area of food, agricultural, environment, and natural resource policy analysis and research.
2. The Center for International Forestry Research has released a new version of Criteria and Indicators Modifications and Adaptation Tool (CIMAT II) software. This software package designs criteria and indicators for different types of forest in order to assess the overall state of a forest. For more information email r.koesnadi@cgiar.org.

South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) Established in Kathmandu, Nepal, in November 1999, SANDEE was founded on the idea that collaboration between environmental studies and development economics offers a useful framework for analyzing the growth-poverty-environmental change nexus. SANDEE uses research support, training and institutional support, peer networking, and information dissemination to achieve its objectives of

• strengthening the ability of South Asian researchers to undertake multidisciplinary research on environmental and natural resource problems;
• supporting the growth of rigorous policy-relevant literature on economic development, poverty reduction, and its links to environmental change;
• facilitating the development of environment and natural resource economics in teaching and research institutions;
• facilitating dialogue among economists, noneconomists, and policymakers on environment and natural resource concerns; and
• influencing the policy process through good analysis, training and information dissemination.

National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD). NIRD, established in 1958, is India's leading institute offering training, research, and consultations in the rural development sector. The institute's mission is to examine and analyze the factors that can help improve the economic and social well-being of the people in rural areas on a sustainable basis and to facilitate rural development efforts by improving the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of rural development officials and nonofficials through training, workshops, and seminars. It has a particular emphasis on the rural poor. NIRD training focuses on enhancing the skills of program implementers because the quality of these officials determines the transformation of the rural sector. NIRD offers over 150 annual courses that reach approximately 3,000 participants. To learn more about NIRD, please visit their website at www.nird.org.

• Ninth Annual Course In Global Trade Analysis
  Purdue University

• Modern Techniques of Data Collection and Statistical Analysis in Agriculture
  Arab Organization for Agriculture Development

• Agrocology, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), and Sustainable Agriculture
  CANR-Office of International Programs and Kellogg Biological Station

• Sustainable Agriculture for the Uplands
  Saemeo Regional Center for Graduate Study Research in Agriculture

• Biodiversity Assessment and Monitoring for Adaptive Management
  Smithsonian Institution

• Canadian Economics Association Annual Meetings

• Policy Modeling for European and Global Issues

• Fourth Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis

• 3rd International Conference on Land Degradation

• Perspectives of the Agri-Food System in the New Millennium

• Biotechnology, Science, and Modern Agriculture: A New Industry at the Dawn of the Century
  International Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology Research (ICABR)

• 3 PhD Fellowships (in any field of biological science)
  The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research