Interviews | I think that both think tanks and university research centers can work very well on South-South research agendas. University research centers have perhaps the advantage of resources and undertaking more in-depth, long-term research. But Think Tanks are more attuned to policy environments.
[Editor’s Note: Interview with Mark Lewis (ML) , ELLA* Programme Director, reflecting on the importance of South-South cooperation, the role of think tanks in this type of cooperation, opportunities and challenges ahead. This interview was conducted by Federico Frascheri (FF) and edited by Liora Gomel.]
FF: What are ELLA’s objectives, mission and vision? How does ELLA contribute to improve the link between research and public policies?
ML: The overall objective of ELLA is to share development lessons between Latin American and other countries in the global south, to better inform development policies and practices. To achieve this, ELLA has two main strands: a research strand and a research uptake strand. The first one focuses on synthesizing and conducting primary research on a series of issues in economic development, governance and environmental management, judged to be important for policy development in Latin American and African countries.
The research uptake strand focuses on ensuring that the research reaches policy makers and practitioners, and organizes exchange and learning programs – what we call “learning alliances” – that bring together peers from across the global south, to disseminate, understand, assimilate and interpret that research. The whole program is oriented towards generating knowledge and sharing and exchanging knowledge with policy makers so that they can learn from Latin America’s experiences in particular.
FF: How does ELLA cooperate with Southern Think Tanks?
ML: In both phases of ELLA -we are in the second phase now-, we have worked with Latin American Think Tanks and these have been good and close working relationships. The Think Tanks are in the lead in terms of both undertaking and sharing research. They undertake the research and the research sharing through the learning alliances. The Think Tanks lead on the online and offline exchange with other countries, with participants from Africa and South-Asian countries[1]. The ELLA program provides support to the Think Tanks on how they go about that research, in order to make sure that it is conducted in a way which allows the generation and exchange of knowledge between different regions of the world – conducting comparative research, including on the broader context in which that experience has happened-. And we support the Think Tanks where they need it on research uptake, including support on the learning alliances, communication of their research and engaging target audiences.
FF: What are the opportunities and challenges ahead for ELLA?
ML: We have a very interesting program ongoing at the moment. We are working on horizontal accountability of the executive, the informal economy, extractive industries, land tenure issues, crime and security, and domestic violence. So we are hoping that this research will generate a lot of interesting results when we compare the situation in Latin American and African countries. We are looking forward to that in the next couple of years.
Beyond the current phase of ELLA, the main challenge is that we would like to move over towards a funding model which is based on finance coming from the global South. At the moment we are still funded by the UK Department for International Development. They have been very supportive and generous, but we would like to engage more with southern based funders to reflect the nature of this program which is strongly South-South.
FF: Why is South-South cooperation important for the development research agenda? What experiences do you know of, that have been particularly successful?
ML : I think that South-South cooperation on research is important because it comes from the South. It is important that countries in the Global South have their voices heard in setting the agenda, focusing on the issues they want to focus on. It is also important that countries with similar development problems are able to work together. So South-South cooperation makes sense in both practical and ideological terms.
It is not easy though. Contexts vary enormously. You can’t simply take experiences from one continent and implant them in another. If you think about import substitution and industrialization strategies: why did they work in East Asia much better than in Latin America? I think you have to look at the broader political, social and cultural contexts. In terms of South-South exchange, conditional cash transfers have been one of the main Latin American exports over the last few years. But again, questions have to be asked on whether or not they are the answer in other countries where the problem is not so much a matter of lack of demand for services, but a lack of supply. So there I believe that research would be helpful in order to work out what form of conditional cash transfer might work better under which context. If we think about the interests of CIPPEC in democratic governance, it is clear that Latin America has made important contributions. Again, research is important to work out what may work in other contexts. You just can’t take the ideas from one region to another.
FF: What is the role of think tanks in this type of cooperation? What are the benefits of Think Tanks cooperating in South-South research? What conditions are desirable for the experiences to be successful?
ML: I think that both think tanks and university research centers can work very well on South-South research agendas. University research centers have perhaps the advantage of resources and undertaking more in-depth, long-term research. But Think Tanks are more attuned to policy environments, so if you are trying to do policy-relevant research, Think Tanks are a good place to do that.
Quite a lot of Think Tanks have challenges. Perhaps some are more ideological in their outlook than others. In the Think Tanks that we work with, we look out for them to be open-minded in their approach, to be transparent about their funding sources, and open to the idea that the advocacy efforts are best centered on evidence based research. And they should be open-minded in terms of other new experiences. If they are going to work with other countries, they need to be open to different ways of seeing the world.
FF: What contribution does Latin America have to offer to South-South cooperation? What are the opportunities and challenges ahead?
ML: The original idea for ELLA was that Latin America had a great deal to share with the rest of the world. Historically, Latin America has made enormous contributions. Certainly, a lot of the thinking around import substitution came from that region. For better or worse, the ideas of the Washington Consensus came from Latin America. Conditional cash transfers are a more recent contribution to the international development policy agenda that came from that region. I am not sure what the next big idea would be, but there are likely to be a lot of contributions in smaller ways. Currently, in the ELLA program we are working on issues of management of the informal economy, which historically has been seen as a rather negative issue, but now it is also being seen in a more positive light. So maybe Latin America has something to say about this.
We are also working on the management of extractive industries. This is problematic in many ways across Latin America but I believe that Latin America still has a lot to contribute on socio-environmental aspects of extractive industries management. Many African countries are in earlier stages of developing their own industries, so Latin America has a contribution to make there.
Again, on the issue of democratic governance, I think that there is going to be a lot of stories to come out from Latin America.
*Evidence and Lessons from Latin America, a programme that mixes research, exchange and learning to inspire development policies and practices that are grounded in evidence about what works in varied country contexts.
