The Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement (IRAD) is a public institution responsible for research and dissemination in key areas relevant for Cameroon development. It carries out research in six strategic research domains around which it is also organised namely, forestry and environment, farming systems, economics and rural sociology, annual crops, perennial crops, and animal production and fisheries. IRAD is primarily funded by the Government of Cameroon but also receives bilateral and donor funding. IRAD runs five research centres distributed in the five main agroecological zones in the country and several specialized centres, with a total of 275 researchers and 147 technicians out of a total of 1030 staff. The Institute has considerable experience coordinating and implementing multi-disciplinary research at national level especially in forestry, agriculture and soils. IRAD would have responsibility for local implementation of the REDD-ALERT project in Cameroon.

Within REDD-ALERT, IRAD will contribute cross-cutting soil management, forestry and GIS expertise, with particular focus on the socio-economic drivers of forest conversion and analysis of changes in carbon stocks in Cameroon. They will also assist with eliciting stakeholder views of international climate policy options and testing the negotiation support tools.

Visit the IRAD website.