By Cathy Maulidi:
Deputy Head of Research in the Ministry of Health, Dr Collins Mitambo, has stressed the need for Malawi to capitalise on research evidence in formulating policy and not just using it for academic purposes.
Mitambo noted that students conduct research which produces crucial findings and recommendations, but they are not shared with authorities for review and implementation where necessary.
He was speaking during a policy dialogue on building local capacity to use complex science in policy and decision-making in Malawi.
Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Research Programme organised the dialogue.
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“Most of the time, a researcher conducts a good study with good recommendations but they don’t reach the policymakers.
“Sometimes we, policymakers, sit in the office looking for research evidence, which proves to be very difficult to find.
“Malawi is a country that comes up with a lot of important research findings, but most of them are used for academic purposes and not to help in formulating policies,” Mitambo said.
He added that if Malawi uses policies that are backed up by evidence from research findings, the implementation of such policies can be successful.
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Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Research Programme Head of Policy Unit, Rhona Mijumbi, said there are significant challenges when decision-makers come across complex science data in Malawi.
Mijumbi stated that in many cases, when a decision maker does not understand the science of data, they just leave it aside.
“So, they make decisions about issues that could have benefitted from science without using the science just because they didn’t understand it and they were not able to communicate.
“We conducted an implementation study and not just research alone. We went out to build capacity for people who work between science and decision-making of policy at different levels to be able to understand data and to use complex science on data which does not have direct translation,” Mijumbi said.
British Deputy High Commissioner to Malawi Olympia Wereko-Brobby stressed the need to have research findings used in formulating policies locally.
“There has been a lot of investment lately in scientific research but most of the results are taken abroad instead of using them locally here,” Wereko-Brobby said.
