Research for Development: Why Is There So Little Of It?

Abstract

This lecture attempts to outline the fact that development projects around the world are still based on too little actual field work research. In this presentation, Graham Mytton, who has been involved in several development projects in countries as diverse as Tanzania, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, East Timor and Nigeria, is convinced that performance of projects could be much improved through better and targeted research. Using the example of a project in Tanzania in 2000, where a promotional campaign of messages to encourage people to use simple ways to avoid the blinding disease trachoma made many elementary mistakes and that, if a better and more focused research programme had been used prior to the project it would have been more successful. The presentation showed how focused research could make such projects more likely to achieve success through appropriate research before such projects were instigated. Some websites that provide useful information are provided.