Experience, Experts and Knowledge in Japanese Aid Policy and Practice

Abstract

The Introduction to this book noted the substantial change in focus during my career associated with moving in 1978 from research, teaching and supervision in a university to working in a development agency, the IDRC, dedicated to supporting research in the South. It brought a fundamental shift from the development of knowledge through personal research to the development of projects that would generate knowledge by Southern institutions. But one of the commonest discussions in the agency world continued to be about the widespread setting of knowledge priorities by agencies in the North. I have already shown how the first education commissions to Africa arrived with their own priorities for Africa already set. I have also noted in Chapter 3 the very substantial amounts of knowledge generated by development agencies as part of their own project cycles.