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“Research is important, indeed essential, for effective aid and for sustainable development,” according to IDRC’s Director of Policy and Planning, Lauchlan Munro.

 

Munro was a member of an IDRC-hosted panel discussion held during the Canadian International Development Agency’s International Cooperation Days (ICD). IDRC President Maureen O’Neil also moderated a panel on successful partnerships.

 

Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation, Josée Verner, hosted the international forum, which ran from October 30 to November 1, 2006. This is the fourth year that CIDA has held the annual fall event.

 

More than 1000 representatives from the nongovernmental, voluntary, public, and private sectors met with international development experts and frontline workers in Ottawa to exchange knowledge and ideas.

The session, What Works and What Doesn’t: The Role of Research in Effective Aid, organized by IDRC, gathered a panel of experts to explore the role research plays in making development assistance more effective, efficient, and relevant.

 

Joining Munro on the panel were Alice Hovorka, assistant professor at the University of Guelph; Mario Polèse, Canadian comanager of the Centre Urbanisation, Culture et Société of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique; and Francisco Sagasti, President of FORO Nacional/Internacional in Lima, Peru.

 

“Research has always been a tough sell in some sectors,” said moderator Kanina Holmes, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communications, as she addressed the crowded room.

 

“Some people may not believe in the value, or outcome of research. In part, that’s probably because the lines of communication, from inquiry to outcome, aren’t as clear as they should be.”

The panellists spoke of the importance of properly disseminating research in order to change mindsets and practices.

 

“Good research is only effective if it is shared with the right people,” said Munro. “It’s not an accident when research influences policy. You need to think about your target audience and how to frame your results in such a way as to get it noticed and read by that target audience.” 

 

Sagasti, who is a member of IDRC’s Board of governors, underlined how, with globalization blurring the line between domestic and international policy, it is increasingly difficult to turn research into action.

 

“Policies are not independent – they are often interrelated with others,” said Sagasti. “Research must be disseminated properly and communications must be taken into account in order to have an impact.”

Hovorka has seen firsthand how research can influence policy. The recipient of an IDRC Agropolis award in 2001, Hovorka witnessed the Botswana government adopt a national urban agriculture policy based, in part, on the results of research she carried out on the role of women in urban agriculture in Botswana.

 

“I realized that as a researcher I could be a liaison between people and municipal, or government officials,” she said. “I realized that one person can make a difference.”

 

She said researchers must switch from preconceived issues of what should be happening to a better understanding of what is actually happening.  She also feels there should be not just recognition of scientific knowledge but also of traditional and aboriginal knowledge. 

Researchers must not only focus on changing policy argued Polèse.  Governments in the North can learn from the mistakes and successes of research experiences in the South.

 

“First and foremost, we must change perceptions,” he said. “We in the North do not have all the solutions.”

 

Polèse elaborated on the constraints of universities in developing countries and how difficult it is to do research in the South. 

 

“Research is a luxury to many academics in the South.  Their libraries lack resources, salaries are low, and many academics simply do not have the time to do research.” 

 

Lack of access to the Internet – the average North American home has as much bandwidth as some universities in the South – and lack of material in languages other than English compound the problem. 

 

The knowledge gap is not only real, it is growing, warned Sagasti. “We are headed toward a ‘knowledge apartheid’. There is an urgent need to develop research capacities in the South.”

 

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