Table Of ContentPartnerships in
Development-oriented Research
Lessons Learnt and Challenges Ahead
Bishnu Raj Upreti
Anne B. Zimmermann
Berhanu Debele
Guéladio Cissé
With contributions from the following
NCCR North-South Regional Coordinators:
Nazgulmira Arynova, Manuel De la Fuente, Boniface P.
Kiteme, Thammarat Koottatep, Astrid Wallner
Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research
(NCCR) North–South, South Asia Coordination Office
2012
Citation:
Upreti BR, Zimmermann AB, Berhanu Debele, Cissé G; with
contributions from the NCCR North-South Regional Coordinators.
2012. Partnerships in Development-oriented Research: Lessons
Learnt and Challenges Ahead. Kathmandu, Nepal: NCCR North-
South, South Asia Coordination Office
Copyright © 2012 by the authors and the NCCR North-South
Published by: NCCR North-South, South Asia Coordination Office,
Kathmandu, Nepal; [email protected]
ISBN: 978-9937-8174-5-5
Printed by: Heidel Press Pvt. Ltd.
Kathmandu, Nepal
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this book are entirely those
of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the official
views of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the publishers, or
the organisations with which the authors are affiliated.
Cover photo: Part of the NCCR North-South’s transdisciplinary
approach to problem-solving: researchers, Nepal’s tourism minister,
a member of the donor agency, a non-governmental organisation
(NGO) representative, tourism entrepreneurs, and local community
members discuss how to promote rural tourism opportunities in a
sustainable manner in a village in the Western Region of Nepal,
within the context of a small, research-based partnership action
project (PAMS). [Photo courtesy of Regional Coordination Office
(RCO) South Asia]
FOREWORD
This book is essentially the product of South-South cooperation.
As such, it is an ideal reflection of what the NCCR North-South set
out to achieve when it brought together researchers from diverse
regions in the global South at its inception a decade ago. The NCCR
North-South sought answers to problems of global change; to help
find them it aimed at creating research structures able to deal
with the complexity of issues involved in determining successful
development policy. Achieving a sustainable improvement in
development requires more than just strong will and financial
capacity; it also requires knowledge and skills. Knowledge which
is both adaptive and solution-oriented can only be developed in
cooperation with those it is meant to benefit, making it indispensable
to develop research and institutional capacity in the global South.
Has it worked? Has creating a network of research scientists from
Bangkok to Abidjan, from Kathmandu to La Paz, from Bishkek to
Addis Abeba and Nanyuki brought about the desired results? Not
only were the regions geographically diverse: so were the topics
of research. Geographers, medical doctors, political scientists,
and environmental engineers from the South worked, side-by-
side, with their counterparts in Switzerland to tackle the issues
obstructing development in countries of the South.
To find out whether research partnerships as practiced by the
NCCR North-South were indeed living up to expectations, the
eight Regional Coordinators of Asia, Africa, and South America
conducted a study. This book presents the results. By and large,
it confirms the value of research partnerships as the most viable
and cost-effective way of developing research and institutional
capacity in the global South. But it also seeks to be self-critical,
making suggestions for improvement where necessary.
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Research partnerships promote exchange rather than transfer.
Mutual learning – in the South as well as the North – is par for the
course. Research partnerships are in perfect accord with the goal
of establishing a knowledge society in the global South.
While the NCCR North-South as a structure will cease to exist
in 2013, we have no doubt that the network of professional and
personal relationships built up within it will continue to thrive, in
one way or another. Over the years it has become commonplace
within the NCCR North-South to see researchers from Tajikistan
exchanging information with Ethiopian colleagues on sustainable
land management, to combat the erosion common to both countries.
Or for researchers from Vietnam and Cameroon – based in Hanoi
and Yaoundé – to jointly develop a practical assessment tool for
use in planning sustainable sanitation strategies.
It is our sincere hope that support for research partnerships
as presented here will continue, and even increase, in future.
Working towards developing knowledge societies in the global
South will lead us towards the goal of self-determined sustainable
development.
Hans Hurni and Urs Wiesmann
Directors NCCR North-South
Thomas Breu
Coordinator NCCR North-South
Tina Hirschbuehl
Communications Officer NCCR North-South
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Acknowledgements
The idea of examining partnership dynamics emerged during an
international training course in Vientiane (Laos) in 2006; it was
subsequently discussed within the Regional Coordinators’ Forum
(RCF) and with the NCCR North-South Management. The Board
of Directors (BoD) of the NCCR North-South supported the idea
and encouraged the RCF to further develop the idea. It took several
months to translate the original idea into a research proposal. The
RCF formed a Core Group (CG) to which it delegated the steering
role in developing the proposal further. The draft was finalised
in Addis Ababa in early 2008. This draft proposal was discussed
among the Regional Coordinators and accepted at the following
RCF meeting in Costa Rica in 2008. The proposal, entitled
“Exploring Partnership Dynamics” (EPD), was submitted to the
BoD of the NCCR North-South and the SDC for funding. After
approval the research project was formally launched in January
2008.
This book is the collective outcome of three years of effort by the
RCF, the Core Group, and associated staffs. North–South research
partnership dynamics were assessed by a study team covering
nine regions on four continents, coordinated by Prof. Kailash Nath
Pyakuryal. Their work is gratefully acknowledged herewith.
We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the SDC and
the NCCR North-South for funding this study and providing
feedbacks and suggestions during the entire period of research and
writing of the present publication.
We are also very grateful to all the individuals and institutional
respondents who participated in the survey. The following
reviewers provided greatly appreciated comments on an earlier
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draft: Dr. Stephan Rist, Dr. Urs Geiser, Dr. Didier Péclard, Dr.
Claudia Michel, and Dr. Eva Heim.
Similarly, we would like to acknowledge the untiring cooperation
of all the Regional Coordinators and their EPD Project Assistants,
and thank them for their comments and suggestions for improving
the manuscript throughout the project period. The young local
researchers formed an important part of the research team and
helped the Regional Coordinators to collect information and we
extend our thanks to all of them.
We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Manuel
Flury (SDC) for his encouragement, his willingness to fund this
project, and his conceptual input, and to Dominique Simone
Rychen (SDC) for her continuous encouragement and support
during the project. Last but not least, we would like to express
our appreciation for the continued support and encouragement of
Prof. Hans Hurni and Prof. Urs Wiesmann, NCCR North-South
Directors, and Dr. Thomas Breu from the Management Centre,
NCCR North-South. We also thank Julia Slater for her assistance
with the final editing, and members of the Management Centre
who assisted in collecting literature to complement the material
collected by the original research team. Special thanks go to our
colleague Dr. Karl Herweg for letting us use some of his cartoons, to
Siddhi Manandhar for managing logistic matters, Jyoti Khatiwada
for the design and layout, and to Safal Ghimire for supervising
production of the proofs.
The Authors
2012
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