NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

solutions, which might have been known as single solutions
but are newly combined.
The challenges
22
FOCUS
Research for development
Bassirou Bonfoh
Bassirou Bonfoh is the Managing Director of the Centre Suisse
de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS), and
regional coordinator of the NCCR North-South in West Africa.
He is a veterinarian by training, specialised in epidemiology.
Bassirou Bonfoh’s field of work within the CSRS and the NCCR
North-South is on safety of animal source food/zoonoses and
livestock production systems, especially in extensive prodution
systems in Africa and Central Asia.
The CSRS is located in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. In 1951, the centre
was established by the Swiss Academy of Sciences with the goal
to encourage and support North-South research partnerships
in Côte d’Ivoire and other West African countries. The purpose
of the research (basic or applied research) is to generate results
that are useful for development. The activities of the CSRS focus
on research, training and services. These activities are run within
the following three departments: “Environment and health”,
“Biodiversity and food security” and “Valorisation, resources and
application”.
vance who the actors are. These actions lead to identifying
the actors who may be politicians, economic actors, or civilsociety
actors. In addition we also have to see how research
becomes relevant. On the one hand, I believe that research
can become relevant through linking with the above-mentioned
actors and through not pre-defining problems out
of our science logic, but rather out of that society-science
interface. On the other hand, in R4D we are dealing with,
you could call it, “real-world problems”. Real-world problems
are characterised by at least three main aspects:
You always deal with many factual uncertainties, with
value-loaded issues, and with many conflicting stakes.
R4D gets relevant as soon as we are able to reduce uncertainty,
make values more transparent, and make stakes negotiable.
Normally, in R4D we are not looking for the big
technology innovation. We are looking for contextualised
Hearing your statements makes me think about funding
mechanisms for R4D, which call for a precise definition of
the goals, the research plan, the expected findings and – at
times – the implementation concept. This sounds contradictory
to what we heard about R4D so far. How do you go
about this?
Isabel Guenther: For any research question, it is difficult
to predict what kind of impact it might generate. I think
the important point is that you can define partners
with whom you see a potential for implementing your
research findings in advance. You can show how you
plan to generate impact, but there is no certainty that
this will happen.
Barbara Becker: In my view, R4D is not different from other
research in the sense that you define clear hypotheses and
a clear work plan. I think that is a basic condition for all research.
But, the complexity of how you go about it may be
greater. The groups that you have to involve in your research
may be more complex and go beyond the traditional experimental
designs. I think the challenge is to capture this complexity,
for example with interdisciplinary approaches. This
may involve some transaction costs, which, coming back to
your question, is often not covered by the normal funding
mechanisms.
Urs Wiesmann: You said, as in any other research we have
to have clear research questions and hypotheses. This is, of
course, true for the start. However, R4D is always an iterative
process with the concerned society – else it is conventional
research. That means the research questions, the
methodology, and the hypotheses will transform over time.
The common funding mechanisms, especially scholarships,
contradict with R4D, because they normally cover two to
three years. You say what you want to do at the beginning
and you answer at the end. That does not work in R4D
unless – and that is what we are trying in the NCCR North-
South – unless you, as a research institution in the North
or the South, have a vision of a programme which you
compose out of projects. I think the CSRS is a good example,
having developed its vision over many decades, and acquiring
different projects to come up with a programme
as a whole, which is R4D.