The National Planning Commission ( NPC) alongside the National Commission for and Technology (NCST) will tomorrow launch the National Research Agenda which will guide researchers, academic institutions, think-tanks and development stakeholders in generating knowledge, technologies and innovations that will build knowledge-based economy for Malawi towards inclusive wealth creation and self-reliance as outlined in the MW2063.
Speaking to Journalists, National Planning Commission Research Manager Andrew Jamali said the National Research Agenda is very critical in implementation of Malawi Vision 2063, because it is about a long term goal.
“So as a country we need to make sure that we are doing research which is addressing the needs of that long term development goal. So it is very important and that’s why the National Research Agenda is there to operationalise the Malawi 2063 vision,” said Jamali.
Jamali added that the research agenda is being launched this time because there was a need to have a development strategy in place which is the Vision 2063 which was launched on 19 January, 2021 and now there is also the Malawi first implementation plan 1 that is operationalizing the vision.
“So we needed to have that raw material to know exactly what are the pillars of the vision, what are the key specific interventions of the vision, what are the kind of resources and information that the vision and the 10 year plan are actually putting in place so that we can now begin to formulate what kind of research, innovations and technologies need to be developed to operationalise the vision and MP1 that’s in place,” explained Jamali.
According to Jamali, after launching the National Research Agenda, NPC together with NCST will make sure that the agenda is widely disseminated across the space which are the academia, research centres, think-tanks, the MDAs and development partners.
“All of these institutions have to know that we have the research agenda, the idea is every research that we conduct apart from focusing on their own priorities, they must make sure that they are addressing the needs of the country through the national research agenda,” added Jamali.
On his part, Mike Kachedwa Chief Research Officer Responsible for health, social sciences and humanities research at NCST, said the National Research Agenda is structured into pillars, themes and research priorities.
He added that the agenda is different from pieces of research agenda developed in the past through the National Commission for Science and Technology.
“With the coming of MW2063 vision and with the development and adaption of the Malawi 2063, the first 10 year plan, we thought that we should develop this new National Research Agenda that is holistic and it is aligned with the Malawi 2063. So in terms of the structure, it has 10 specific research pillars aligned with the Malawi 2063 vision,” explained Kachedwa.
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