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Hannah Akuffo says African countries need to define their own research priorities

Source: TropIKA.net editorial team

“The onus is on African countries to be clear about where they want to go in terms of research directions,” says Hannah Akuffo. Having worked for SIDA (the Swedish International Development Agency) for the last decade, focusing in particular on university support and research capacity building, and with years of research experience, Akuffo knows what she is talking about.

Her guiding motto in her own career has been to think outside of prevailing scientific dogma – this has reflected in her research on, for example, leishmaniasis. But she acknowledges that innovative research can be a difficult undertaking in developing countries. She admits that when guiding younger scientists, she shares her own story, but stresses that if they don’t want to face too many obstacles and want to advance in their career, it can be easier to go down the path of what’s scientifically “in”. A key obstacle for these young scientists is securing funding for innovative, potentially risky, research. “This is the catch 22,” she says, “to get support, you need to be convincing, and to be convincing, you need to have the evidence.”

In many ways, the basis for a culture of research is lacking in many African countries, she says. “This is because the teaching is not problem based – it’s been very didactic. But accessing information and communication technologies in which students can find out info for themselves which should change this.”

How development organisations like SIDA or DFID (the UK’s Department for International Development) prioritise their funding is a thorny issue. Researchers from developing countries often feel frustrated that research issues they feel are important don’t attract much international funding. Agencies, meanwhile, counter that they need developing countries to be far more vocal and focused about their own priorities.

The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness sought, in part, to ensure that donors were putting their money where it was really needed, in such a way that it was aligned with countries’ own priorities and strategies.

Akuffo acknowledges that one of the barriers to funding research for development is development agencies (ie, separate from research funders like the UK’s Wellcome Trust or the US National Institutes of Health) are not taking research seriously. “The issues of today – such as democracy – appear so pressing that these agencies don’t think too much about priorities of the future.” But these agencies know that research and innovation has been instrumental in how their own countries became so developed. “When they look at developing countries, they tend to think only in terms of dealing with the catastrophes of today.”

She offers some clear ideas of where research should be focused. Research in Africa and other developing regions should not just be applied or clinical research. “People must be able to study mathematics, statistics, physics, or the epidemiology of fruit flies if they so wish.” The key is to develop solid expertise in their field. “ This will mean the research is robust enough to be credible to compete on a global level,” says Akuffo.

“You notice people are getting greyer and greyer at meetings,” so it is important not to lose sight of the need for regeneration of competent people to be able to continue science, she says.

One initiative that has heavily determined global and national research priorities is the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But how much attention should countries pay to them? Are they a useful focus point or do they skew research? Akuffo likens the MDGs to religion: “It’s a question of how closely you follow it and how you interpret it.”

Some African countries are taking the lead in setting their research agenda. “I’ve been rather impressed with Mozambique,” she says. Despite being a low-income country, the government has set up a ministry of science and technology to coordinate research. “It’s no coincidence that the minister came from a university and he was an entrepreneur.” SIDA is now supporting the country in these areas, but the drive very much came from Mozambique.

The need to focus on the crisis of the moment is often cited as a reason not to invest in science and technology for the future. Nevertheless, Rwanda, despite low level of research that is being done because of its turbulent political history and civil conflicts, has strong leadership from their President, who believes science and technology is what will ultimately move the country forward.

Other African countries need to wake up, she says. “It should not be a one-sided thing.” Countries need input from researchers to express their research priorities to the rest of the world. But the research community does not always make its views clear to high-level government actors.

One reason for this silence, says Akuffo, is that universities expect to be asked, but this passivity is not beneficial to them or their country. “In every country, it’s those who come to the table who will influence the strategies.”

There are parallels here with science communication, where some researchers feel that as holders of knowledge they don’t need to defend or explain their research to journalists or the media, nor should they make a particular attempt to communicate their research to the media. There has been a tendency that “we have the knowledge, if you want to come up the hill, we’ll tell you about it.” It’s time to climb down from their ivory towers, says Akuffo.

Asking countries to list priorities is an important step for donors. But what happens if countries do not list issues that the rest of the world can see are urgent priorities, for example research into chronic diseases and into building health systems capacity for chronic diseases?

The process of giving aid should never be passive, she says. The role of SIDA and others is not to be a passive payer but to be dialogue partners. “We should ask countries questions about why are they doing something or why they want to research an area. We think you should negotiate and have dialogue. But it’s also important to have an element of competition between organisations – it would focus institutions’ priorities.”

An issue like how closely donor aid matches countries’ requirements is allied with how donors should behave while in situ in the recipient countries. Too often, heavily funded external treatment programmes, for example, have parachuted into countries to help tackle a particular disease but then undermined the countries health systems by drawing key healthcare workers away from their daily roles.

Akuffo agrees that sometimes, even with the best intentions, donors have been so focused on their goal – providing access to a new drug, for example - that they “forget some of the fundamentals”.

SIDA has recently met with several donors to discuss how they can share experiences from mistakes or successes: “How can we work so as not to undermine the system?”

While many donors are trying hard to harmonise their priorities with countries’ needs Akuffo has a key message for recipient countries: this is the opportunity to assert oneself. “If they don’t take this opportunity, when will they?”

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