NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

e direct in the sense that you have a specific question you
want to find a solution to. But R4D can also be indirect. Initially,
you do basic research without focusing on solving a
specific problem of society, but in the very end the outcome
of your research is transferred to improve the lives of people.
We have spoken about different actors being involved in
R4D, about a recursive process, or – as Isabel put it – impact
happening by coincidence. Based on your experiences, who
defines what the demand is?
Bassirou Bonfoh: In principle, you start your research based
on your discipline. While conducting research you take the
agenda of other people or communities into account. You
integrate this in your research and by that time you are
in a continuum where you cannot locate the starting
point anymore.
Barbara Becker: Various actors can define demand. For
example, it can come from within the research community,
in the sense that while conducting research you discover
questions which need to be addressed. Or, demand can
also be derived from direct interaction with poor people in
a small village who come up with a problem which needs a
solution – the local population is thus expressing demand.
Urs Wiesmann: If we start again from the requirement of
transdisciplinarity, the problem definition has to be found
at the society-science interface – with many consequences.
First, I think one cannot say from the beginning, if applied
or basic research is needed. We call our approach “oriented
research”, where you develop your research around the problem
definition, which develops at that interface. This also
means that you cannot pre-define which disciplines have
to be involved – which is what I called recursive. On the
demand side, we differentiate between three categories.
Demand in the narrow sense, when research is seen as a
knowledge pool, to which a political group, or population
can refer. Second, demand can be more need-oriented, as
explained by Barbara. The third category of demand – we
call it “requirement-driven” – is guided by a negotiation
about the visions of development. This third category can
be conceptive, but it is never driven by research alone. I am
strongly against leaving the so-called problem formulation
to the outside world to be reflected in science – then we
would be consultants and not researchers.
Barbara Becker: We only addressed the demand formulation
so far. I think we also have to address the implementation
of results. In that respect there are two critical groups
Barbara Becker
Barbara Becker is the Managing Director of the North-South
Centre of the ETH Zurich. Her professional background is in
tropical agro-ecology with research on vegetation ecology of
Andean land use systems in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia and
on edible wild plants in arid zones of Africa. Her experience
in research management is based on former positions with
the German government as a liaison officer for international
agricultural research, and as a project coordinator for an
information system on genetic resources. Barbara Becker
serves on the Boards of Trustees of the International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and of the Africa Rice
Centre (WARDA).
of people outside the research community. The policy-makers
and the private sector may take up technologies or research
results for further distribution. These two groups are normally
not the natural allies of researchers, but play a key
role in the approach of R4D.
Isabel Guenther: The important point is that R4D is not a
consultancy service for an externally formulated demand.
What is the more important question is how one can transfer
research results into action – this interface between research
and society needs to be developed.
Bassirou Bonfoh: In West Africa, or in Africa in general, we
sometimes listen to the decision-makers saying, “If you
want to do research for research’s sake, this is not what
we need. We need research that we can apply.” To apply
research you need extra resources allowing you to validate
what you have done. These funds are often lacking. In contrast,
the “Partnership Action for Mitigating Syndromes” of
the NCCR North-South 1 highlights the importance of research
and application.
Urs Wiesmann: What is very interesting with these Partnership
Actions is that in many cases you may not know in ad-
1 Partnership Actions for Mitigating Syndromes (PAMS) are projects of limited financial scope and duration, implemented by local actors in
partnership with scientific and non-scientific stakeholders. In close connection with research efforts, Partnership Actions implement and test
approaches, methods and tools developed in research, in order to identify promising strategies and potentials for sustainable development.
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FOCUS
Research for development