Demand-oriented research is sorely lacking


Marksman | Published: December 12, 2017 21:21:32 | Updated: December 13, 2017 19:59:48


Demand-oriented research is sorely lacking

The Bangladesh Research Almanac 2017 hosted by the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies (BIDS) on December 6-7 dealt with an issue that is central  to development endeavours.

The Almanac was themed on "narrowing policy-research divide" in other words, on  bridging the gaps between policy and research. Since policy and research are intertwined and  inter-dependent, the theme could as well have been  turned around to addressing the research-policy divide.

In the original proposition, 'policy' is placed before 'research' conveying  a sense that policy is the end and research is the means or tool for policy-making. It may not be as simplistic as that; for, contingent upon a conflict between the end and the means or/and premised on backdated information, a research pursuit may produce flawed results.  In fact,  good policy is beyond formulation; the effort  may even go haywire  from a charted course  without the aid of targeted, accurate, diagnostic and time-conforming  research inputs as the grist to the mill.

It is not merely an issue of semantics  concerning order of words in a theme since they are hyphenated after all! But as a believer in the importance of fundamentals.    we  choose  to highlight the obvious which is :  Research is   pivotal to policy-making . In the process, we  aim to bring into a sharp focus a third factor viz. the deficit in  or dearth of good policy back-up for research. Just as policy research as distinguished from output analysis is important so is research policy an imperative necessity in its own right. The bottom line is that if we are   to ensure well-directed, objectivity-driven research we need an overarching, sound policy framework.

Professor Rehman Sobhan, chairman, non-government research  institution, the Centre for Policy Dialogue(CPD) has articulated  the imperative need for coordinated research. He says, good research in the country is hindered through lack of coordination between researchers, policy makers/planners and the private sector. What do policy-makers want from researchers is seldom made clear by the former. At the same time, the private sector's requirements  remain unclear to the researchers or those are  just not taken on board. For purposeful, more importantly, visionary research, coordination, synergy and synthesis among potential or real stakeholders are indispensable.

Professor Sobhan hits the nail on its head when he says that researchers are failing to be the voice of the common man --the country's farmers, industrial workers and wage-earning, foreign exchange remitting expatriate community. They are the ones moving the economy. But the million dollar unspoken message is, what they want is not reaching the country's policy makers and planners.

Economist MA Taslim has  brought up the issue of the  main repository of governmental statistics that the Bangladesh Bureau of  Statistics (BBS) represents  is not  performing to its potential. He made the observation in an article he wrote in this paper  that "the national accounting data  of the BBS paint a glowing picture of Bangladesh as a  stable high performing dynamic economy; but the findings of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey(HIES) 2016 suggest a stagnant  lacklustre economy."

One can only add that the quality of BBS' statistical data has been an embarrassment to even government functionaries, let alone being not quite helpful to economic analysts including private sector researchers. In the main BBS lags behind in terms of data collection, collation, analyses and presentation in any coherent and corroborated forms. Their 'macro-economic data, such as economic growth rate, are frequently not consistent with other data such as credit, export and import, etc. with which they are supposed to be correlated.'

The critic, however, points to a way out to any serious pursuit for establishing veracity of certain macro-economic data. "Reassuringly, most of these data are amenable to cross-checking. The Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue and Export Promotion Bureau provide their important  data not only  on monthly basis but these are believed to be reliable too. So, 'any large-scale  unexplained discrepancy  will be quickly discovered and corrected', adds Taslim to our relief.   

  

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