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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.