Questions like who are doing those researches, who are funding them, are their findings reliable, what is their usefulness, who can access them and so on have never been raised or deliberately ignored by the research community and the stakeholders so far.[break]
But with the field growing in scope and size, if still frustratingly disorganized, it is time now for all the stakeholders to ask the above questions to ensure that the vast resources – human, financial, technical – being poured in do not just go down the drain.
Moreover, at this time of social unrest, if the research community in Nepal do not find answers to those questions, rather than clarify, researches are more likely to create misunderstandings; rather than become means to empower the disenfranchised, they will be a medium for some to channel funds for their personal gains; and rather than becoming an open platform where everyone has a say, the field will become a fiefdom for a few who can exploit information for their own sake.
“At the root of social, economic and political problems is the lack of understanding of Nepal’s social, economic and political issues, of Nepal’s contemporary issues, of the roots of those issues,” said Pitamber Sharma, former vice-chairman of the Planning Commission who currently heads Resources Himalaya, a non-profit organization. “We can’t solve our problems unless we understand ourselves better. But even today, we are struggling to create standardized data about ourselves.”
Sharma acknowledged that researches and data collection are taking place in their own way “but there isn’t any effort to maintain that data, to look for its utility and to prioritize it.”
You need a framework for that, said Sharma, adding, that is what a research council is all about.
Former secretary of the Ministry of Women, Child and Social Welfare, Balananda Poudel threw more light on the issue.
“It’s not that the government isn’t spending money on research. Different ministries have budget set aside to carry out or commission studies and researches,” said Poudel. “But we don’t have institutional arrangement to do such things in an organized way. We do have a system of collecting data but there’s no mechanism to study the data systematically and analytically.”
Poudel also pointed out another issue that is equally worrisome. “No attempts have been made so far toward policy evaluation. To date, there hasn’t been policy impact research in Nepal,” he said.
When a policy that has been implemented fails to achieve its intended result, it’s quite natural to ask, “Why did it happen?” If we begin to ask that question, the importance of research will become clear. “Evaluation of projects implemented – itself a subject for research – would clearly show why policies and projects that don’t draw on reliable data don’t work,” said Poudel.
A major problem in this regard, Poudel added, is that we lack procedural mechanism to link research with policymaking. A national-level research institution like Social Science Research Council could play an important role to address that.
“At the time of policymaking, there are several options to choose from, all of which may seem legitimate. So what should be the basis for choosing one policy over the others?” Poudel said. The fundamental principle in this regard, he elaborated, is that such decisions should be made on the basis of facts and data that come from investigations and researches and their subsequent analyses.
“What you can achieve through research is understand the specific problems of specific groups without which you can’t make policies,” said TK Oommen, Professor of Sociology for many years at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, before retiring in 2002. “In order to make legislation, it is absolutely necessary to know the social realities.”
When you collect data from policy perspective, Oommen explained, you will do it to understand the deprivation of a category of people and to help policymakers make laws that empower the vulnerable sections of the society.
According to Oommen, researches were taking place in India since a long time in the university departments, but they lacked policy focus. “The then Minster of Education VKRV Rao, an economist and the main force behind the establishment of Indian Council of Social Science Research, thought policy-relevant social science research was needed,” he said.
One of the works of the ICSSR was to finance research projects with a policy slant. Over all, the focus at the time was to get knowledge about the weaker section of society. So ICSSR gave substantial amount of money in order to conduct studies on women, and the marginalized communities known in India as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
“The policies of creating seats in the educational institutions and bureaucracy for the erstwhile unrepresented segments were a result of this,” Oommen said.
At different points of time, different categories will come for focus. The Royal Norwegian Embassy is trying to encourage research in Nepal through Social Inclusion Research Fund (SIRF) from inclusion perspective, be it inclusion of women, Dalits or Janajati.
“A lot of fund is poured into areas that are of less importance while the areas that deserve more attention are being neglected,” said Manju Thapa Tuladhar, team leader of SIRF. Tuladhar and her team at SIRF have been supporting and coordinating with several researchers working on a diverse array of topics reflecting the country’s diversity.
SIRF itself is an example, albeit at a small scale, that it is possible to have a national-level research institution that brings together research professionals, addresses their needs, trains them and allocates funds in more equitable manner, based on priority.
Tuladhar and all other experts interviewed for this article agree that the government must have a stake in such an institution so that it has a sense of ownership and is obliged to acknowledge and act according to the findings of the studies facilitated by it.
Meanwhile, Poudel informed that the Ministry of Social Welfare is leading the effort to establish Social Science Research Council. Under the chairmanship of the Secretary of the Social Welfare Ministry, an ad hoc council has been formed that has already prepared relevant documents to be submitted to the government once there is political stability.
Political problems apart, Poudel also points out that lack of proper communication among stakeholders for an organized push for the formation of the Council is partly responsible for the slow pace in which the process has been moving.
“Research as a field has not been able to organize itself because the government has not owned it so far,” said Pitamber Sharma. “All this can be attributed to the lack of realization among political leadership that funding social research will ultimately help improve policies and programs, enable their implementation, and ultimately help us understand ourselves better.”
The government should realize, he stressed, that the most important stakeholder of an organization like the Social Science Research Council is the government itself. “After all, it is the government that is responsible for the development of the country by understanding and addressing the country’s social, political and economic issues,” said Sharma.
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