Gaps and Emerging Themes

There are a few issues related to the topic communication of research for poverty reduction that are underrepresented in the literature reviewed, but which nevertheless seem to be emerging as important themes. In this section they are presented under the following four headings: Approach communication as a systemic issue; Improve the conditions under which research is communicated; Facilitate different levels of user engagement in communication of research; and Invest in communication for double loop learning. The most evident gap in the field is perhaps the failure to see communication as a systemic issue; this is therefore discussed in the first sub-section and also explicitly informs the themes of the following three sub-sections.

Approach communication as a systemic issue

Most of the literature reviewed takes for granted that improved communication of research in the international development field will contribute to poverty reduction. This means that almost no time is spent debating the question 'Will improved communication of development research actually lead to poverty reduction?', while much time is spent providing recommendations in answer to a second question 'How can you improve your communication?'. The shift to this second question should not necessarily lead to a narrower debate, but that is what seems to have happened in practice. Reviewing the recommendations currently on offer, as presented in Section 3, it becomes clear that:

• Many of the current recommendations - in particular the ones aimed at improving researchers' ability to communicate - rely on a questionable linear model. It is assumed that improved Knowledge will lead to improved Attitudes which will lead to improved Practice (the KAP model), even though the evidence against this is by now overwhelming.
  
• Many of the current recommendations rely on a second questionable assumption that one of the overriding problems in development is a lack of information. It is assumed that if communication of information and research could be improved, development would follow. This view pervades the literature reviewed in Section 3, but is perhaps most clearly expressed in the World Bank's oft-quoted World Development Report on 'Knowledge for Development': 'Knowledge is like light…Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty -unnecessarily. Knowledge about how to treat such a simple ailment as diarrhoea has existed for centuries - but millions of children continue to die from it because their parents do not know how to save them' (World Bank, 1999). As has since been pointed out, this statement can easily be taken to ignore the fact that the spread of diarrhoea is closely linked to sanitation, overcrowding, nutrition, and poverty - and cannot simply be solved through providing information (see for example Mehta, 2001). One gets the feeling that commentators are reminding the Bank - and themselves - of what the Bank already knows: 'It's the economy, stupid'.

These two critical points are not meant to discount the importance of research; for example the importance of research on the causes and effects of HIV/AIDS can hardly be overestimated. On the other hand, it seems that the importance of finding the right communication channels and strategies for those research results is easily and regularly overestimated, as the problems of HIV/AIDS prevention are not mainly tied to lack of communication, but to socio-economic conditions of insecurity and marginality (Lambert, 2001; Lush and Walt, 1999), and disfavourable macro-level policies (Laurence, 1998; UNAIDS, 1999).

Therefore the first challenge in relation to this topic of communication of research for poverty reduction seems to be to find ways of combining thinking about communication with thinking about the complex political and economic processes that produce situations of poverty (including communication poverty). The following three sub-sections attempt to take this into account.

In sum, communication is not only an issue to be tackled at an inter-personal, local or project level; it is also a systemic issue. Most current recommendations offer several possible options for individuals and projects, but have very little to say about how to approach communication at a systemic level.

Improve the conditions under which research is communicated

The poor are marginalised both from political and economic processes and communication processes in a society; they face the dual problem of not being able to 'send' information about themselves to policy-makers and, on the other hand, not being able to access information that they could use to change their situation. In two case studies from India - concerning the right to information movement (Jenkins and Goetz, 1999) and the organisation of pavement dwellers (Patel, 2001) - the marginalisation of the poor from information systems was dealt with through influencing the political will of policy-makers. Other case studies examining why science research is not used as effectively as it could be in UK policy (Scott, 2003) and why public policies are frequently not put into practice the way they were intended (Lipsky, 1980), argue that the problem is not lack of communication per se, but lack of an enabling political/economic environment that would allow the practitioners to take up and use the information at hand.

In sum, the conditions under which research is communicated can have a far more decisive effect on whether the research is taken up or not than the actual communication content, channel or strategy. In particular, political and economic processes - such as lack of political will or pressure due to lack of resources - seem to be determining factors. The case studies illustrating this are taken both from a UK/Western context and from Southern contexts.

Facilitate different levels of user engagement

User engagement is the key to taking communication beyond mere dissemination. It is frequently referred to in the literature as a good strategy for increasing the responsiveness of development research projects, making research agendas more relevant and useful to end users, facilitating trust and ownership, and thereby increasing the chances for uptake of the research results into policy and practice. User engagement can operate at different levels:

• Southern research demand: take user realities and preferences into account in development research and communication. Recommendations at this level highlight the importance of mapping research demand, information deficit areas, information-use environment and existing communication patterns in the South - in order to make design and communication of research more responsive to these realities.
  
• Southern research capacity: strengthen user capacity to generate research and to access communication networks. Recommendations at this level (most frequently formulated and funded by bilateral donor agencies) are mainly based on two rationales. Firstly, research generated with and by Southern institutions and contexts is perceived as more likely to be useful than research generated outside and for the South - and is also seen as a way of addressing the challenge of global inequalities which lead to Northern-dominated research agendas. Secondly, strengthened capacity to produce research also leads to strengthened capacity to access, evaluate and adapt research produced by others. Thus improved research capacity in the South may contribute to improved access for Southern researchers to Northern and international research debates and agendas, and greater ability to take up (externally-produced) research and use it in Southern contexts.
  
• Southern research communication: provide platforms for users to communicate themselves. Some of the literature observes that communication processes are often correlated with decision-making processes, i.e. one-way communication is usually accompanied by unilateral decision-making, while two-way discussion is more amenable to inclusive decision-making processes. This has been noted both at community level (Figueroa et al., 2002) and at the level of international decision-making processes within development (Kasongo, 1998). In many respects communication is power (cf Bourdieu, 1991), and those with ability to communicate (i.e. ability to generate or access knowledge, ability to be heard and noticed when disseminating knowledge, ability to enter and participate in discussion fora, ability to be taken into account when voicing opinions, etc.) often also have the ability to set the agenda. Southern researchers, institutions, civil society organisations and other intermediaries have - when compared to their Northern counterparts - relatively less communication power, and therefore also relatively less agenda-setting power. Investment in their ability to participate and influence might take the form of providing platforms from which they can take part in communication processes (national or international), i.e. strengthening Southern research communication capacity.

The first two points above are fairly well covered in the current literature and recommendations on research communication. The third point, however, is not well elaborated.

In sum, activities are being designed and implemented to address Southern research demand and research capacity, but by comparison there is little being invested in user engagement at the level of Southern research communication. This situation fails to address the issue of user engagement in decision-making processes (i.e. ignores the systemic nature of communication again). Since decision-making processes are important determining factors in poverty reduction, this oversight may to some extent undermine the positive results that arise from the first two points.

Invest in communication for double loop learning

As mentioned previously, Weiss' (1977) original distinction between the direct and indirect impact of research on policy is largely not taken into account in current recommendations. An illustrative example of this is the case of HIV/AIDS policy change in Mwanza, Tanzania. The most important contribution of research in this case may have been to support a cumulative process of conceptual change from the 1980s onwards (Phillpott, 1999). However, current literature tends to overlook this cumulative process and instead emphasise the one research result - a statistic of 42% reduction in HIV incidence published in 1995 - that apparently caused an immediate, instrumental change. Direct research impact is more easily identified, measured and monitored, and is privileged in current recommendations - leading to advice about strengthening researchers' communication skills to enable them to reach policy-makers directly and aiming for close collaboration - 'snuggling up' - between researchers and policy-makers so that research can feed directly into policy.

Consequently, many of these recommendations implicitly focus on communication of research as a means to 'single loop learning'. The distinction between single and double loop learning is described by Argyris (1992), who defines single loop learning in the following way:

'When a thermostat turns the heat on or off, it is acting in keeping with the programme of orders given to keep it to the room temperature, let us say, at 68 degrees. This is single loop learning because the underlying programme is not questioned…the job gets done and the action remains within stated policy guidelines.' (Argyris, 1992:115-6)

Communication of research for direct policy impact is in many ways geared towards such single loop learning. Double loop learning, on the other hand, is 'thinking outside the box'; it is a process which questions underlying frameworks and gradually leads to conceptual change. It is similar to Weiss' process of 'percolation', in which research findings filter through research/policy networks and gradually introduce new concepts and ways of thinking about issues. These issues are under-represented in the current literature, but are beginning to be addressed in some of the literature and activities related to networks. Investment in networks and communication of research through them provides a forum for critical debate of development policy and practice, contributing to double loop learning. Networks that aim to be broadly inclusive also have the added advantage of enabling voices from different contexts to be heard, thus countering the self-reinforcing effects of close collaboration between researchers and policy-makers from the same context.

In sum, the strong current focus on communication of research as a means to direct and instrumental policy change carries the risk of over-investing in single loop learning, to the detriment of double loop learning in development policy. Communication of research for double loop learning would require more focus on the importance of independent research, gradual conceptual changes in the policy environment, and the possibilities for communication and learning provided by networks.

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