Development 2.0--by Nadeem Ul Haque

Anjum and Nadeem discuss economic research in Paksitan. Questions examined are: What is driving research?  How relevant has it been to the larger problems facing Paksitan? Is research affecting policy? Where is the demand for research?  Where is research funding?  Does the funding drive research issues and agenda? Should the government define a role for itself in research?  Should the government fund more research? 

Every few days former HEC officials lament the lack of funding to HEC in the context of a burgeoning youth population. No amount of money is enough for these people, demands range from Rs 120 billion to over 300 billion per annum.   We have been on a university building binge for the last decade or more and now have about a 128 universities.   Yet a former HEC chief writes that we only have about 7000 PhDs in these. That means that there are about 55 PhDs per campus. And they tell you that a majority of these are fresh PhDs. That experienced and competent professors are few and far between. They are also quite clear that university education has to be permanently and fully subsidized in the country. They are very good people and well respected and far be it from me to challenge them or to doubt them. And I do not. However, I do think that HEC is working on a flawed model. Let us see how. First, let us review what a university is. When most of us chos...

Today Muhammad Yasir Khan a student at Columbia write an article in The NEWS that touched me. Perhaps some of my economist friends would care to respond. I hear the young man's anguish on how Pak economists have failed the country. How should we respond? Here is what he says? "Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought. -Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Despite the uni-dimensional education policy focus on churning out PhDs in every field, we have not yet settled for the reality that we are nowhere in the world when it comes to research on economic and social policies. In any other country a field left so wide open could not have been up for grabs for so long, yet not a single domestic expert seems keen on taking advantage of the situation here. First, without going into individual profiles, let us analyse our experts. A strikingly high proportion of our economic and social development experts have been ex-employees of multilateral agencie...