African Researchers and Decision-makers. Building Synergy for Development: Building Synergy for Development

Foreword

Foreword Development policies in our African countries can only be sustainable if they are grounded in local realities. Such policies should lead to actions and solutions that are suitable, sustainable and culturally acceptable, not only within the African environment generally but also in the immediate communities for whom they are intended. Very often, actions carried out by bilateral and multilateral donors are founded on studies conducted by international experts specially mobilised for that purpose. Thus, most of the poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) required by the World Bank to give countries access to debt reduction mechanisms are written by outside experts called in by the Bank. Only a handful of countries have been able to turn in “homegrown” PRSPs. And yet, there is no lack of national experts who could have provided the States with the necessary data to prepare papers more closely connected with their national realities. Unfortunately, in West and Central Africa, researchers and decision -makers rarely make fine bedfellows. Despite quality research conducted by national researchers, policy decisions are most often informed by advice from abroad. This observation, which is quite widely shared, prompted certain members of the Council of Regional Advisors * to ask the following question of the regional office of the International Development Research Centre in Dakar (IDRC) during a meeting in 2003: How can the Centre, whose mission is to promote development by supporting research, stimulate use of research findings * The Council of Regional Advisors was set up in 2001 by the IDRC West and Central Africa Regional Office to support it in its reflection on emerging problems in the sub-region. The Council comprises ten experts whose areas of competency correspond to IDRC’s four main programme areas. Advisors are chosen on the basis of their individual expertise and mastery of African development issues as well as their ability to influence policy. Some twenty advisors have served on the Council since 2001. Their selection has been carefully balanced in terms of expertise, language, gender and nationality. xii African Researchers and Decision-makers with a view to policy-making that is both effective and relevant in the specific context of West and Central Africa? While the question is not a new one, IDRC has decided to address it pragmatically and concretely for this region of Africa where it supports numerous researchers and research institutes. Thus, the aim was not to enlist brilliant analysts to make a study on the issue, but rather to find a formula that makes it possible to directly question the actors involved in an organised manner, while stimulating cross-reflection with a view to finding solutions. Supported by its Regional Advisors, the Centre brought together researchers and decision-makers from various countries in the subregion in the framework of a three-year series of meetings, running from June 2004 to January 2007. The aim was to compare viewpoints and conduct joint reflection on obstacles to effective dialogue, and to propose innovative and sustainable solutions to overcome those obstacles. To better define the problem, the meetings mobilised decision -makers (politicians, civil society, local elected representatives, traditional and religious leaders) and researchers having a specific field or country in common. In organising the series of meetings, IDRC was able to rely on the personal commitment of the Regional Advisors in each of the countries involved, as well as on the methodological support of the programme administrators at the IDRC regional office in Dakar. Programming , coordination and supervision of the series were ensured by Gilles Forget, Regional Director, and Jérôme Gérard, Regional Research Officer at the Centre. An innovative approach allowed IDRC to explore various methodologies for the organisation of the meetings, and to take account of various approaches and concerns inherent in each context, while leaving considerable space for learning. With the exception of the first workshop, a pioneering undertaking in many ways that was organized in Senegal, the meetings between researchers and decision-makers were locally designed and steered by national organization committees set up and led by the assigned Regional Advisor in the country concerned. The common goal of the meetings was to arrive at a better understanding of why decision-making is only rarely informed by national research findings, no matter the country or research subject involved. The conclusions of all six workshops revealed several causes including a lack of dialogue between the two groups, across countries and research fields. xiii Foreword Almost unanimously...