Kakaire A. Kirunda
13 August 2008
There is a shortage of senior social scientists to lead health-related research in Africa, according to a research study conducted mainly in Uganda as well as in neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania.
This is despite the existence of many African social science graduates, and decades of Northern- funded research programmes intended to develop local capacity.
To investigate the barriers to developing health social science research capacity in East Africa, researcher Daniel Wight of the UK's University of Glasgow conducted 29 in-depth interviews, informal conversations and a group discussion with professionals in this field. Worth noting is that the findings are biased towards Uganda, with 18 interviewees being Ugandan, four Kenyan, three British, two North American, one Tanzanian and one Nigerian.
Wight says respondents' explanations for inadequate social science research capacity are primarily related to under-development and global economic inequalities.
According to Wight's findings, the few really good social scientists are being overworked and overwhelmed with requests for collaboration. Most academic health-related social science research in Uganda was said to be run by Northerners (western researchers), yet Uganda was thought to have stronger capacity than Kenya, with Tanzania coming third. Particular limitations identified were in qualitative research, analysis and writing skills, and health-related specialisms.
"Interviewees stated that the vast bulk of social science research in East Africa is commissioned by NGOs or government departments, mostly funded from the North; consequently, it is highly applied and determined by external priorities. The few opportunities for academic research were said to come primarily from Northern researchers who win the funding, resulting in unbalanced collaborations," he writes.
Wight also notes a recurrent theme of the predominance of individually contracted research consultancies. "These seem to divert university staff from academic research, supporting colleagues and training the next generation of researchers, stunt the institutional capacity of university departments, restrict the sharing of research findings and perpetuate donors' control of the research agenda," reads a report from the findings.
According to Wight's findings, most of the research work conducted by social scientists in East Africa is in the form of consultancies. "... in Makerere, you can spend your entire time just working on very well paid, short-term consultancy studies for NGOs, ... who want something done in three weeks, and will pay you very well ...," the UK's Department for International Development [DFID] funded study quotes a senior researcher.
This was blamed on the extremely low university salaries that end up creating a powerful incentive for consultancies. Wight discovered that a research associate's salary might be $250 per month, while consultancies can pay $100-$250 per day. He writes: "In one research institute, consultancies augment salaries range from around $400/month to about $5,000.
A head of department explained: "... to rely on your salary would never make ends meet at all." Furthermore, in contrast to regular salaries, most researchers can avoid declaring consultancy fees for tax (30 percent).
Wight argues that although consultancies greatly augment meagre university salaries, they also seem to divert university staff from academic research and training the next generation of researchers, stunt the institutional capacity of university departments, restrict the sharing of research findings and perpetuate donors' control of the research agenda.
He proposes "Commissioning bodies committed to strengthening research capacity should consider devising research contracts, and means to improve university administration, that ameliorate rather than exacerbate the problem."
Nonetheless, Wight describes his study as exploratory study. He calls for further research to clarify "the scale of individual consultancies across East Africa; whether revising commissioning practices would seriously contribute to research capacity; and, hardly represented here, the views of agencies commissioning consultancies."
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