Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

[<address removed>]

Dear Colleagues, 

I apologise for only now getting into this dialogue (travelling is my 
excuse).   I have about 40 years experience in higher education, 
agricultural research evaluation, review and learning in natural 
resource management, farming systems and rural livelihoods in the UK 
and in Africa , Asia and Latin America. At various times, I have worked 
for,, DTC/ODM/ODA/DFID, the CG system, World Bank, FAO, IFAD, Sida, 
ITDG,Intercooperation, Swedish Farmers Organisations and many others.  
This does not make me any more qualified to comment than anyone else, 
only that it has given me longer to wonder why we learn so slowly from 
our past experience and why our institutional memory is so weak. 

I have been prompted  to do so by Robin and Jill's contributions, and 
now that of David Harriss'. I am also disturbed by the constant decline 
in funding for S&T and in the allocation of resources to train the next 
generation of scientists who might wish to work in developing country 
agricultural, social and natural science.  There has been a parallel 
decline in the resources available for the training developing country 
professionals and the kinds of commitment, for example, that produced 
such an excellent group of professional scientists from Lumle and 
Pakhribas in Nepal over a 20 year period of support. This was built on 
long term relationships with UK institutions 
and generated many mutual benefits. The legacy has been a generation of 
research and extension personnel that are making significant 
contributions to ngo, national and regional research and development  
systems . 

The decline in support for UK scientists who might wish to work in 
developing country research ( apart from the small contribution from 
agencies like the TAA)  contrasts strongly with the Dutch, German and 
some Scandinavian countries' programmes.  

An important deficiency in our own training of natural scientists has 
been the lack of integration of social science and an understanding of 
social context . This continues to be a gap that affects the relevance 
of much research and the need for constant retraining and relearning. 

I do not fully share Jill's confidence in biotech solutions to the 
current range of perceived problems and have more confidence in the 
innovatory and researching and development capability of small ( and 
other)  farmers themselves. The continuing failure to bring farmers 
into the mainstream research monitoring, critical evaluation and 
planning process means that many research institutions ( in both North 
and South) learn slowly and tend to repeat mistakes. 

I agree that the buliding of new partnerships and integration of R&D 
capability is essential between international, national, regional and 
non government agencies and this calls for the restructuring of many 
institutions and the development of more systemic thinking at many 
levels and scales of operation. 

Finally, I do think that it is worth spending a little more time on the 
analysis of the systems and processes that we have done well and also 
to learn some lessons from the mistakes that we have made, rather than 
being determined to make radical shifts in forms of support for R&D 
every 10 years . 

David Gibbon


-- 
Dr David Gibbon, Agricultural and Rural Livelihood Systems , 
Farmer-Participatory Research and Learning.
Lower Barn, Cheney Longville,Craven Arms, Shropshire, SY6 8DR. United Kingdom, 
Tel/Fax. +44 (0)1588 673086 e mail <address removed> 
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