The International Growth Centre, based at LSE in partnership with Oxford, aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries. In this post, IGC’s in-country economist in Zambia, Herryman Moono reflects on how politicians can be invaluable partners for researchers.
One of the most exciting days of my academic life was in February 2011 when I found out that I would be the IGC’s in-country Economist for Zambia after finishing my studies at Oxford University.
With that in mind, I could not wait for the end of the academic year to head back home, to help facilitate growth research into policy, and excitedly so, in my home country.
Settling back in was quite easy and I set about tackling my first project which was reviewing mining taxes in Zambia. This was of great personal interest given the political and economic nature of mining taxation as well as the trade-offs it presents to policy-makers.
Within a few months of my return home, a change of government presented both an immense challenge and opportunity for policy research and engagement for my work.
We were able to build a good rapport with the new Zambian government which later took on some of our policy recommendations regarding mining taxation.
My experience so far shows that strict economic analyses ignoring the political landscape are likely to end up as a mere academic exercise with little effect on policy.
In my developing country, and I suspect in many others too, political decisions supersede economic analysis, and therefore, as researchers, it is imperative to get as close as possible to the political sphere if our recommendations are to be acted upon.
This is not easy, but not insurmountable, and as IGC Zambia, we have had invaluable opportunities of engaging with senior political players who have bought into our research agenda and have further requested research guidance on other growth-related areas too, particularly in the sphere of employment creation.
So far, the IGC has provided an opportunity to understand the political economy aspect of applied growth research as well as bring out challenges and opportunities for development research in the setting of a developing country.
More importantly, this has been an opportunity for learning and adapting to a new kind of research that directly feeds into the growth agenda.
I can confidently say that this has so far been the greatest experience of my young career in development economics and I look forward very much to the future!
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Great work Sir,
I realized as well that there is need for change of perspective but i never knew what this new perspective should be. Your approach, (getting close to the political sphere in order to be best placed to influence policy) seems like the next Big Thing in Zambian Economics.
We need major change in our country. We really need it.
Bravo! Good work
Thank you, Tamani, and yes indeed, we need to get as close as possible to the decision makers if our policy recommendations are to be acted upon. This, however, seems to be the greatest missing link most research activities taking place in the country are missing.
Bravo!!! Hope this approach will see us thrive through to a better economy.
Good work Herrymon.
I hope it does Mervis, and indeed, we cannot sideline political players as they are the key clients to any national research agenda.
Brilliant work,
Indeed governance should not be far from growth in this part of the world. We have a lot of growing to do as an economy and applied development economic research can come in very handy in public policy making.Am grateful IGC Zambia has identified that, and is working on it.Thanks also to the government for the for incorporating your recommendations in policy making.Am confident it will go a long way.
Keep up the good work sir.
Interesting peace, but i also want to have a look at more detailed reports you have done on this subject. otherwise great work and we are always inspeard by your lead
Good work Moono, its important that academics rely their findings in the real world unlike just writing reports for publish. Way to go Moono
Nice going man! We should link up soon.
Surely, politicians are greedy in Africa – well, the Corruption Perceptions Index says speaks volumes in this regard – and they can be very sneaky too. We researchers need to find other innovative ways of getting to them other than the traditional avenue. I’d suggest that we could, for instance, have a programme with Parliamentarians as the audience and share our findings in a much more semi-formal environment. Research findings usually fall on deaf ears if luck is on your side but what’s worse is that some of these guys don’t even have ‘ears’ in the first place.
Good work indeed.This perspective is bringing out the dichotomy between politics and economics to the fore.Continue the good work.