Document(s) 8 of 9

Ruled for decades by the systematic, violent injustice of apartheid, South Africa by the mid-1980s was subjected to international sanctions and near-universal condemnation. It was in this period — long before transition seemed likely — that IDRC opened its own new assessment of its approach to South Africa.

An intensive, highly structured campaign of fact-finding and analysis, championed by IDRC executives and staff, was launched in late 1985. It would result, some three years later, in a program of development research support designed expressly to prepare South Africans for a non-racial democracy.

The program certainly had influence: When the first freely elected majority government took office in 1994, more than half the members in the new South African cabinet had earlier participated in IDRC projects.

Document(s) 8 of 9