An introduction to Topic 4: "How should donors and research funding
agencies prioritize and decide which research topics to support?" has
been posted in English in the Pages section of the discussion group.
French and Spanish translations will follow.  We look forward to your
thoughts on this over the next two days.

Click on
http://groups.google.com/group/ruralfinance/web/topic-4-how-should-do...
- or copy & paste it into your browser's address bar if that doesn't
work.

Jennifer

I would like to join my voice here with Ramesh's in this suggestion - and
add that this not only presents a certain 'political' challenge in the
context of recent events but also a methodological one which I think is best
met through collaboration across different agencies.

I would also like to urge for some kind of platform that allows for more
transparency about studies on the anvil (this would really enable the sector
to coordinate around limited research resources), and sharing of detailed
data and not just broad findings. As has been brought out in discussions
earlier in the group there is a gap in research capacity at the regional
level - at least part of this can be strengthened by senior researchers
sharing in depth their even if just with a limited audience the tools and
details of their work.

Regards
Rewa

On 5/24/07, Ramesh S. Arunachalam <r_arunacha...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I believe that donors can assure quality in rural finance research  by
developing and funding "lines of investigation" that are well
conceived, well integrated, participatory, adequately funded, and
relevant.

The way that research is generally done at multilateral institutions
is one of three ways.

First, a staff person obtains donor trust fund monies (grant money) to
undertake research on a topic.  The staff normally directly
participates in the study along with consultants or researchers at
institutes in the developing world.  Normally the staff person has
some background and interest in the topic. The topic is picked by the
staff person in consultation with supervisors.

Second,  a staff person is involved in a lending operation and hires
consultants to do background sector work to help in the design and
preparation of the loan operation.

Third,  staff commissions an article or paper from a recognized
outside scholar/expert for a conference and/or book.

The way that research is done at bilateral institutions is to make a
grant project to a consortium of universities or consultant firms to
work on a topic and to disseminate the results over a set number of
years, e.g. USAID.

The main problems with these four approaches is that the results many
times do not get in the hands of practitioners and that the research
may not be of sufficient operational value.  The research may be of
good or high quality in terms of publishablility in academic journals
or well received by technical peer reviewers but it may not to useful
to the manager of a financial intermediary. The biggest failing is
that dissemination efforts tend to be limit to the circulation of a
small number of hard copies and web posting.

Proposal:  To improve the situation, I propose that donor agencies
have two research tracks.

First, fund "burning issues" and subject the proposals and actual work
to rigorous review and give incentives for the researchers to be as
practical and applied as possible. In addition,  serious efforts have
to made to do good dissemination.

For example,  theory build, test the theory, and then try to translate
the empirical findings into step by step actions that a practitioner
could follow.  The "research product"  may have to a "versioned" in
three dimensions   Product 1:  high quality technical piece; Product
2:  Synposis piece written to be accessible to a non-technical
audience of policy makers and practitioners; and Product 3:  Practical
Guidelines.    To date,  funded research tend to produce products 1
and 2.  Most dissemination efforts tend to be limited, to publishing a
report in one or two languages, posting it on the web, and giving
oral presentations at a few seminars/conferences.  A more serious
dissemination effort would allocate more researches to getting Product
3 and getting it in the hands of appropriate practitioners in a
language they understand.  Too often due to budget constraints,  the
dissemination components are the sections to be cut first, with the
reason being that "we will get money next year or from another pot to
do dissemination, let us just focus on getting a publication first."

Second, establish a facility to fund demand-driven operational
research.  If the manager of an MFI wants to do a time and movement or
activity based study in order to identify were operational
efficiencies can be realized,  the facility will provide researchers
to assist the staff of the institution conduct the study.  Some
incentives/penalities should be incorporated to insure that results
are seriously considered and used.
Other examples could be determining interest rate elasticities and
coefficient of risk aversion in the context of product design and
price point setting.

Third, with regard to disseminating and communicating results to
policy-makers I found the ODI report very enlightening.  More
structured, well-funded, and long-term efforts seem vitally needed so
that researchers can be ready for the "golden opportunities of
influence".   At present, rural finance topics are underresearched,
precious few "workable, practical solutions" exist, so when
policymakers come knocking, the research community has little to
offer. Thus,  "bad policies"  and "bad interventions"  have a better
chance of being applied.

The vicious cycle   of  little or no appropriate research,
unappealing operational proposals, and ergo little influence  has to
be broken.

Fourth,  "good" and "practical"  research has to be rewarded.  Quality
research means  both tradition hypothesis with sufficient data and
solid methods as well as good PRA qualititive methods.  "Practical"
means that some one has to use it.   Number of cities can be used to
favor hiring or rehiring "quality researchers with an academic bent"
and Number of success applications or favorable end user reviews can
be used to hire or rehire  "quality researchers with an operational
bent".  Sometimes there may be an overlap, some people may specialize
in one are or the other.  Right now there are too few or either time
working in rural finance.

Best regards,

Mark Wenner

On 23 May, 12:33, Jennifer Heney <jennifer.he...@fao.org> wrote:

I don't believe that donors and research agencies should take the lead
in prioritizing and deciding which research topics to support. At
least, they should not do so in isolation from practitioners,
policymakers and researchers, as often happens. I believe that
research topics and agendas should emerge from a dialogue by donor and
research agencies with these other groups of knowledge producers and
users (any could be a producer or user, or both). However, there are
too few structures to facilitate these dialogues and perhaps too
limited financial resources to sustain them. For example, we don't
have any solid regional or global networks of researchers who focus on
rural finance topics, and few examples of networks or individual
practitioners engaged in exchanges with a large group of researchers.
Sure, some networks and institutions are in touch with one or a
handful of researchers, but it is rare to find that they have access
to large numbers of researchers, broadranging debates, diverse
literature, and comparative experiences and findings from other
countries or regions.

Consequently, I believe that the critical role now for donors is to
consult practitioners, policymakers and researchers to think
collaboratively about how to build up the infrastructure for
identifying basic and applied research problems, disseminating and
debating findings and theories, and supporting pilots to develop and
test innovations that emerge from applied research, followed by their
evaluation and the sharing of the results -- all with attention to
cross-national and comparative approaches.  In other words, investing
in networking and other mechanisms that can shape new and relevant
research agendas is key. Donors could support the identification of
research agendas by supporting convenings that bring together
practitioners, policymakers and researchers to identify researchable
problems. They could build on these discussions by then launching
requests for proposals that could both attract experienced rural
finance researchers and new faces. And, lastly, they should
incorporate practitioners, policymakers and researchers into the
process for reviewing the resulting proposals and selecting projects
for funding.

In terms of criteria for allocating funds, I would not support a
litmus test approach, although I think it is sensible to focus our
(hopefully "smart") subsidy on efforts that are likely to yield
insights or approaches that work for the poorest.

Best regards,
David Myhre
Sr. Program Officer, Development Finance and Economic Security
The Ford Foundation, Office for Mexico and Central America

On 23 May, 11:33, Jennifer Heney <jennifer.he...@fao.org> wrote:

Dear All,

While we are looking at the funding question, I thought I should draw
this document to your attention.  It is a report from IIED / IDS
entitled "Maximising the Impact of Development Research: How can
funders encourage more effective research communication".  We are not
alone in examining these questions and this report has much of
interest to our current debate.  I have uploaded it into the Files
section of the discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/ruralfinance/files

Jennifer