This report and case study presents the research of IDIN 2016 Summer Research Fellow Jessica Gordon, who researched an innovative poverty alleviation and climate adaptation pilot project in a village in rural western China.  The case study finds that the project was effective in influencing the local development plan for the area to take into consideration climate change adaptation and mitigation and to link these issues to poverty reduction, making this the first county in China to develop a climate resilient local development plan.

The Lean Research Framework is a guide to principles for human-centered field research developed by researchers at MIT D-Lab, the Feinstein International Center, and the Fletcher School for International Diplomacy at Tufts University. 

This report summarizes the work of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Kelly Heber Dunning, who traveled to Malaysia and Indonesia during Summer 2015 to study community-based approaches to managing coastal natural resources such as coral reefs and mangroves. This research, which forms part of Kelly's doctoral dissertation, finds that community-based resource management arrangements afford greater opportunities for innovation in natural resource management and sustainable livilihood development compared to top-down management arrangements.

This report presents the research of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Rida Qadri, who traveled to Lahore, Pakistan during the summer of 2015 to conduct exploratory research on the impact of an innovative agricultural crop residue-to-energy project in rural Punjab. This report present preliminary findings of her analysis of the economic benefits that this project generated throughout its rural supply chain.