The Department for International Development (DfID) leads the Government's response to tackling world poverty through its support to long term programmes addressing the underlying causes of poverty and provision of emergency and disaster relief.

The Secretary of State for International Development is supported by a Minister of State and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

The SoS is advised by both a Chief Economist and a Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA). The CSA is also the Director Research and Evidence Division and reports to the Director General for Policy and Research who sits on the DfID Management Board.

The UK government is committed to research for understanding and tackling world poverty and the strategy for achieving this is defined in the DfID Research Strategy. The role of research is to provide evidence that can shape development policies and programmes across the world. DfID has six key research areas:

• Growth
• Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change
• Health
• Governance in challenging environments
• Future challenges and opportunities

Up-to-date information on DfIDs centrally funded research portfolio can be found on the Research4Development (R4D) website www.research4development.info