Some aspects of regional-national scientific relationships in East Africa: a summary

This study of some aspects of regional-national scientific relationships in East Africa focuses on the interplay between the East African Agricultural and Forestry Research Organization (EAAFRO) of the East African Community (EAC) and the national agricultural and forestry research systems of the Partner States which make up the Community - Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Recently, regional (in the multi-national sense) cooperation or integration has increasingly been proposed as one way in which small developing countries can utilize their scarce resources in a more effective and efficient manner and thus develop faster. Despite the seeming logic and rationality behind these arguments, however, most attempts to date have either failed or have not lived up to expectations. The first major section of this study covered two exercises. In one, a methodology for ‘objectively’ measuring the direct benefits from EAAFRO and determining how they were distributed among the Partner States was developed and utilized. In the second exercise, a transaction analysis was attempted which covered the professional visits of EAAFRO officers to locations in the Partner States and of visits of national-level representatives to EAAFRO headquarters. The results were then related to distance and national borders in an attempt to see what factors might be influencing these transaction patterns. The second major section of this study focused on the individual national researcher in all Partner States. The primary dependent variable investigated was his general opinion toward EAAFRO, and a set of hypothesized relationships was tested to try and explain that opinion. Independent variables tested included benefits from EAAFRO, opinions toward the EAC, the opinions of relevant national groups toward EAAFRO, proximity to EAAFRO, knowledge about EAAFRO, the race of the national researcher, the extent of personal contact transactions, and the extent to which EAAFRO's work complemented that of the national researcher.