PS says researches must influence policies, national progress

HILDA MHAGAMA

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and the Elderly, Dr Mpoki Ulisubisya.

RESEARCHERS should make deliberate efforts to ensure their research findings reach and are effectively applied by the targeted people, policy makers easily accessed and applied in policy formulation and influence social and national economic growth.

This was said in Dar es Salaam by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and the Elderly, Dr Mpoki Ulisubisya, during a policy dialogue workshop.

“There are good researches gathering dust in our libraries in the country, however, unfortunately they are not available to research fraternity and not easily understood by layman,” he said.

Dr Ulisubisya said learning the best tools for communicating research was encouraged, researchers wishing to increase the impact of their research need to make their findings accessible and relevant to policy-makers and other professionals.

He further said there was a need to bridge the gap between researchers, policy makers and practitioners and understand the current needs and improve research packaging, communication and implementations.

The PS insisted that policy makers should always be informed about ongoing researches and researchers should have knowledge of the most pressing policy issues. A one day policy dialogue on ‘Setting health Policy Agenda for 2016 and beyond’ was prepared by the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMC).

The objective of the dialogue was to discuss and deliberate on priority health issues that require attention of the policy makers in the country. A Member of the Parliamentary standing committee on Community Development Services, Dr Faustine Ndugulile, said Tanzanian scientists were doing a very good job but they needed to do more to bridge the gap with policy makers.

“For them to bridge the gap they need to focus on researches that have impact in our country, as some donor funded research projects are irrelevant simply because they are funded,” he said. Mr Ndugulile who is also a Member of Parliament for Kigamboni Constituency, said Tanzania needs to invest more in health research and make sure the evidence are used to inform health policies.

He further said it was not necessary to accept every intervention from the international community as some might not work in the country and only end up losing resources.

Earlier, NIMR Director General, Dr Mwelecele Malecela said in today’s world, evidence-based approaches to policy process and practices have become prominent and critical in improving policy process and development.

“The importance of research utilisation in policy-process and decision making is increasingly becoming a challenge,” she said.

Dr Malecela said utilisation of evidence-based research in policy-making can contribute to policies that may eventually lead to desired outcomes and promote change and evidence-based policy.

Expounding further she said not only statistics would have impact on policy making process but research evidence was the most important thing, which most researches lack.