Message from Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Department for Development Policy, Unit for Development Policy
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A NEWSLETTER TO DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHERS IN FINLAND
Background
This newsletter is targeted to the researchers who deal with developing countries or
global development issues irrespective of the academic discipline. The purpose is to share
some information on how the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) co-operates with
development research institutions and researchers. In addition, it includes information on
linkages between development research and the knowledge based management of development
policy and development cooperation.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs support to development research
Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) has well established long-term cooperation with several
research institutions as follows.
Academy of Finland
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Academy of Finland have jointly financed the
DEVELOP- research programme. The MFA and Academy of Finland have made financing decisions
in 2017-2018 to support a dozen of research projects from various disciplines, worth 9 m€.
This is slightly more than during the previous rounds of the programme. The Academy of
Finland is committed to conduct activities related to the enhancement of researchers’
links to non-academic publishing, dialogue and networking. For more information, see
http://www.aka.fi/en/research-and-science-policy/academy-programmes/current…
Nordic Africa Institute
The MFA supports the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in its activities through core
financing. NAI has a wide research programme and a lot of connections to the African and
Nordic research networks. Finland benefits from NAI activities (in addition to
publications etc.) through the following:
- A position for a Finnish researcher.
- Scholarships, including a short term (a month) visit to NAI library in Uppsala
See
https://nai.uu.se/scholarships/
- Possibilities to attend networking activities, including Nordic Africa days
held usually every second year in September.
- Events in Finland. Open thematic seminars.
- For easy access to information it is useful to order the NAI newsletter
https://nai.uu.se/about/order-form/
UNU-WIDER
United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
is a unique blend of think tank, research institute, and UN agency – providing a range of
services from policy advice to governments as well as freely available original
research.
MFA supports the UNU-WIDER with core financing. In January 2019 Professor Kunal Sen
started as the director of UNU-WIDER and launched a new work programme for years 2019-23.
The programme is titled ‘Transforming economies, states, and societies (read more:
https://www.wider.unu.edu/research).
In addition to core financing, the MFA supports UNU-WIDER through project financing on
country-specific work in Mozambique and Tanzania as well as research activities on
domestic revenues and taxation issues.
Finland benefits from UNU-WIDER through the following:
- A collaboration with a uniquely placed policy-research institute whose
programme fits well with Finland’s goals for development cooperation and delivers value
for money.
- Knowledge and experts available for engagement with Finnish stake holders and
MFA.
- Aupporting a UN entity in Helsinki that has established a large and engaged
network of researchers and policy-makers, particularly from the Global South.
- Cooperation with the Helsinki Graduate School of Economics through a course on
development economics.
- Open-access research and databases.
- Easy access to open seminars, workshop, and large conferences in Helsinki on
topics around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals (SDGs).
- Providing access to Wednesday seminars. See
https://www2.wider.unu.edu/crm/content/seminar-series-2019
- In order to know more about the activities and events it is useful to order the
UNU-WIDER newsletter
https://www2.wider.unu.edu/crm/content/profile-centre
ECDPM
European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) is a policy oriented research
institute specialized on the EU development policies. The MFA provides it with core
financing and receives some specialized support on the themes under its expertise. This is
especially useful now that Finland is heading towards the EU chairmanship taking place on
the second half of 2019. For more information see
https://ecdpm.org/
Commissioned studies
The MFA has recently started piloting a new instrument for conducting commissioned studies
on development policy and cooperation. The studies are identified on the basis of
proposals by the MFA staff to fulfill their urgent information needs and need for
discussions related to the key issues of Finnish development policy. The MFA manages the
Terms of Reference and researcher selection with the support from the UniPID (Finnish
University Partnership for International Development) which is a network of Finnish
universities to advance universities’ global responsibility and to strengthen their
response to global challenges.. All researchers interested to be available for possible
commissioning are welcomed to share information on their expertise at the UniPID infobank:
http://www.unipid.fi/infobank/. it should be noted, however, that the financing for these
commissioned studies is rather limited and the usefulness of the instrument will be
reviewed after the piloting phase 2018-20.
World Bank
The World Bank (WB) aims to become a knowledge bank with a wide array of services. In
addition to its massive research programme and open-access publications, it is also
engaged in extensive training activities. See information on the Open Learning Campus.
https://olc.worldbank.org/
In addition to core financing, the MFA has supported the Knowledge for Change Programme of
the WB.
Research as a component of development projects
MFA engages in some development projects, which aim at generating new knowledge,
increasing the research capacities of the partners, creating applied research networks and
sharing the existing research knowledge. The projects can generate new country specific
data on sectors like agriculture, innovation opportunities and energy production. Since
development policy implementation is closely linked to information sharing in many forms,
it is impossible to distinguish the research element in the development projects. It is
fair to say that many government agencies (e.g. Finnish Environmental Institute, Finnish
Meteorological Institute, Geological Survey of Finland) and Finnish universities are
actively involved in many sectors and many countries.
The administration of research in the MFA
The MFA has various administrative arrangements for advancing the development research.
The organizational set-up can be described as follows.
Foreign policy planning and research
Research and analysis covering the whole spectrum of foreign policy issues is commissioned
and coordinated by the Unit for Policy Planning and Research. These studies are mainly
for policy planning purposes of the MFA. They may also provide support to the leadership
of the ministry or can serve public diplomacy purposes. The Unit for Policy Planning and
Research is also responsible for the foresight activities in the MFA and acts as the point
of contact in government-wide research, analysis and foresight activities. For further
information please see
https://um.fi/foreign-policy-planning-and-research
Institutional cooperation on development research
Development related research is managed mainly by the Department for Development Policy.
The Unit for Development Policy is managing the cooperation with Academy of Finland, NAI,
UNU-WIDER, commissioned studies and ECDPM. For more information, please contact senior
adviser Pekka Seppälä.
Development research working group
The MFA has a working group for development research, lead by the Department for
Development Policy. The working group is an informal platform for the MFA departments to
share information on development research.
Knowledge-based management
For a policy making institution, making management decisions on the basis of facts,
evidence and analysis is crucial. How the knowledge is created, supported and utilized are
key issues in knowledge management. The MFA has engaged, like the whole Government of
Finland, in knowledge-based management initiatives. This includes many parallel
initiatives.
The possibilities and challenges of knowledge-based management are well documented e.g. by
Sitra. See
https://media.sitra.fi/2017/11/10161643/Knowledge-in-decision-making-in-Fin…
The ministries are guided towards utilizing new information collection and processing
tools, conducting policy experiments, and networking within the government and
externally.
In the implementation of Finland’s Development Policy this includes, for example:
* Results based management. Setting clear targets for the Development Policy and
development cooperation. Setting indicators and monitoring arrangements. Systematising
analysis and assessment of progress, to adjust and learn on the basis of the results
information.
* Setting clear and well understandable mechanisms for quality assurance and risk
management.
* Utilising information from evaluations and peer reviews.
* Utilising information from expert networks and research.
* Involving the data sources described above to guide the decision-making processes.
In this set-up, research is one element in the larger framework.
Strengthening the researcher – MFA staff cooperation in the field of development policy
and cooperation
The Finnish research community is very wide and it approaches development issues from many
angles. It has a massive expertise on various development issues and this expertise could
be further utilized for the benefit of the Development Policy and cooperation.
There is wide interest for sharing information and views on both sides. There are also
many existing cooperation linkages between individual staff members and researchers. The
MFA is currently considering how these contacts could be better utilized in order to
understand each others “language” (i.e. the way of framing issues) better. The MFA
officers are generally interested in short applied studies, preferably with
problem-solving orientation.
The MFA encourages the research community to share their research results and take part in
development policy discussion in Finland on the basis of the findings. Research can also
be shared directly to the relevant MFA officers. It is useful to provide a one-pager which
summarises the key results or conclusions.
Small steps towards the direction of strengthening “researcher – MFA staff co-operation”
include the following:
* The commissioned studies provide a platform for establishing contacts and learn from
the researcher community.
* The MFA provides continuously Studia Generalia –lectures and thematic workshops to
the MFA officers. Usually the presenters include representatives from the Finnish research
community. The initiative for the topic as well as practical arrangements are generally
made by the MFA with relevant researchers/ research institutions.
* The MFA will conduct some expert discussions with researchers on the usability of
the research results for development policy implementation in 2019. These discussions
relate to our work with the Academy of Finland and the Nordic Africa Institute.
* The MFA has commissioned an evaluation on knowledge-based management in order to
understand the scope of possibilities and constraints. The evaluation will be completed
and the results will be published in the autumn of 2019. The report will be available in
the MFA site on evaluations
https://um.fi/development-cooperation-evaluation-reports-comprehensive-eval…
In order to further improve researcher-MFA staff cooperation the MFA will also do as
follows:
* Provide semi-annually an open newsletter to the development research community in
Finland, related to the relevant research/knowledge-management activities.
* Utilise the UniPID infobank as a practical source for information on research
expertise. Infobank provides currently the most extensive information on development
research in Finland.
* Invite Finnish development researches to inform the MFA on all new publications,
statements and policy briefs. This can be done through announcements to the Development
Policy Unit of the MFA (email address KEO-10@formin.fi<mailto:KEO-10@formin.fi>) by
any researcher. Kindly place words “Development Research Result Announcement: …” or
“Tutkimustietoa kehityskysymyksistä: …” in the subject field. The Unit for Development
Policy uses its expertise to share the information to the relevant MFA officers. Please
note that this is useful only when the related publication is attached to the email in
open-access format or as an open-access link.