Dr Muhammad Sougatul Islam writes for DOT :
Ahead of the eleventh general election in Bangladesh, political parties are now in peak of their activities. Meanwhile, political parties and respective alliances declared their manifestos and trying to convince voters about their vision. In fact, election manifestos for eleventh parliamentary election are not much different from the past elections. In my opinion, manifestos are mostly vague and should have shown specific goals to be achieved apart from some common development rhetoric. In our context, generally these manifestos in past reflected social and economic commitment to convince voters of all walks of life. In course of time the socioeconomic status of Bangladesh has changed and we have been emerged as a middle income country in recent past. In this scenario political parties must take a deeper look to accommodate the demands of specific segments of the nation those who are significant to keep up the pace of development what Bangladesh has gradually achieved after the independence.
Over last three decades RMG and other exported oriented sectors contributed significantly to our economy. Over these years agricultural production has been growing steadily. All these sector had the privilege to enjoy the policies of the governments. However, research and innovation has never been prioritized in global scale by any political parties in the past. Neither, we have seen any such commitments in recent election manifestos published by two great alliances who are contending for power. This is undoubtedly frustrating for the education and research sector in the country. Here research refers to research and development programmes necessary for the progress of economy, health and environment that is research for the development of our living standard and enrichment of our knowledgebase. Research is the engine of development and therefore the come together as “Research and Development” or “R&D”. All the developed countries have a strong research base that propels their development. Therefore, research is the indispensable part of development. Without a strong base of innovation, transformation into a developed nation is not ultimately possible. Because,a nation who is lagging behind in innovation will be always dependent on others and will keep losing rather than earning. It is notable to mention that Bangladesh ranks lowest among Asian nations after Brunei, Nepal or even Pakistan and categorized as “least innovative countries” in a recent published report called global innovation index (GII) by WIPO. Although it contextualized innovation in power sector mainly, howeveritindicates R&D and innovation have neither been emphasized by government nor by political parties over last few decades.
In developed countries political parties are usually seen to be very clear about their future vision towards R&D. Often they promise how much of the GDP will be allocated for R&D and innovation. For example, in the last general election of UK in 2017, political parties declared their expected allocation for R&D. Three major UK parties set a target for increasing total investment into research and development (this target includes public, private, third sector and overseas investment into UK R&D). Labour set a target of 3% of UK GDP to be spent on research and development by 2030. The Liberal Democrats outlined a long term goal to double R&D spending across the economy (which was 1.68% of GDP in 2017), and the Conservative manifesto set out a long term goal of 3% of GDP to be spent on R&D, with a shorter-term target to at least match the current OECD average of 2.4% within the next ten years. However, no such scenario we see from our political parties. On the other hand major R&D stakeholders and policy makers in UK also demand an expected budget allocation before general election in 2017. The Royal Society is one of many organizations including the CBI, Universities UK, the Campaign for Science and Engineering and the Wellcome Trust that urged the government to set a target of 3% of UK GDP to be invested into UK R&D to signal the UK’s ambition to compete internationally as one of the best places in the world to research and innovate. It’s not only about direct government investment in R&D,rather it is also about building an atmosphere where others i.e. industry, charities etc also invest in UK R&D to bring us closer to 3%. Unfortunately we do not see anything like this from our research community either ahead of election.
In essence, government’s investment in R&Dstimulates investment from other sources Analyses suggest that for every £1 spent by the government on R&D, private sector R&D output rises by 20p per year in perpetuity. Undoubtedly the volume of government investment is important. This is how British economy has been transformed into a knowledge based economy over the years. There are many other examples in the world where political parties and their policies help to establish favorable environment where knowledge and innovation are nurtured.
We do believe transforming Bangladesh into an economic power requires spending more resources on R&D. Contemporary young generation is becoming more interested and engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship. This can change the future of Bangladesh if appropriately addressed and encouraged. More importantly our ailing academic and institutional research should be strengthened by supplying more funds. In fact, it may attract our expatriate skilled human resources and significant international collaboration in different sectors critical for our development. We want clear outline how political parties want to achieve those goals. It can be increasing the percentage of GDP expenditure, giving endowment funds, promoting innovative research and encouraging young researchers through seed funds, partnership funds etc. On top of everything these funds have to be disbursed though a a non-corrupt and non-partisan process so that only the deserving persons and organisations can be benefitted from these initiatives. Singapore can be a best model for Bangladesh to follow in this regard. In future, we will hope to see specific promises for R&D in the election manifestos of our political parties and depiction of a future innovation landscape for the nation.
Dr Muhammad Sougatul Islam is the Senior Research Fellow & Head of training and Development Biomedical Research Foundation, Bangladesh