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Pan-African researchers urged to focus on evidence-based solutions
The State Minister in charge of Economic Monitoring Ms Beatrice Akello Akori. Photo/Courtesy
What you need to know:
Ministe Akori was speaking to Pan African Researchers who had convened at Protea Hotel in Entebbe to discuss how to do away with research based on colonial influence
The State Minister in charge of Economic Monitoring Ms Beatrice Akello Akori, has urged Pan-African researchers under the Africa Evidence Network to focus on research work that generates indigenous solutions.
She says locally generated research can effectively guide policymakers and implementers. Minister Akori was speaking to Pan African Researchers who had convened at Protea Hotel in Entebbe to discuss how to do away with research based on colonial influence.
“It’s important to reflect on our past wings and our past knowledge production, our ways of knowing our traditions and civil society organizations to engage and collaborate on based practices for using information in policy processes.”
She added that it’s important that as a Country there are policies and it’s important that in the spirit of pan-Africanism, we learn and support each other to build the knowledge based on evidence informing the decision-making for Africa as a continent to appreciate the use of evidence in policy processes.
“The government established a framework for oversight and evaluation for the Executive known as Apex platform that needs to be reviewed to develop evidence-based research that is adapted for the African continent to improve decision-making by governments and other stakeholders.”
While addressing the Pan -African Researchers, Minister Akori discouraged participants from relying on only foreign research protocols while dealing with African problems but urged them to utilize indigenous methods in order to derive findings and recommendations that work for the continent.
Minister Akello, underscored the importance of evidence in decision-making, planning, and policy monitoring. “I believe with the right investment in research Uganda, we can be able to efficiently tackle several of its problems such as food insecurity, disease, unemployment, and poverty among others she gave an example of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which is still fresh in our minds exposed our vulnerabilities as Africans and the need to invest in research data and information," she noted.
She however reiterated the government's commitment to support research through continued investment and improved framework.
The Center for Rapid Evidence Synthesis (ACRES) Director, Dr. Rhona Mijumbi said in order to deliver equitable and important research, there is a need to use knowledge that is native to the African continent.
"Our ancestors had knowledge that made sense, that helped them thrive in their communities in Africa but when we were colonized a lot of this information was erased or it was demeaned and made inferior, so today when you try to talk about indigenous ways of knowing, people will laugh at you, we need to bring back these ways of knowledge," she noted.
During the three-day engagement, the pan-African researchers hoped to come up with a policy framework that would help them drive research in Africa.
