World Economic Forum East Asia - Dispatch No 1 from Jakarta!

My first session at the World Economic Forum East Asia, was on the Role of Think Tanks in Policy Making in East Asia.  The session was Chaired by Simon Tay, the Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Two short presentations were made by William H Overholt, President of the Fung Global Institute, and Chandran Nair, Founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow (GIFT) (don’t you just hate these clever acronyms, especially when you struggle so unsuccessfully to come up with them?!!)

Overholt’s was a pretty orthodox, somewhat western-centric view.  He talked about TTs needing to think about the future, and to develop deep analyses of issues – because governments are beleaguered by electoral politics with no space to scout for new ideas or do some corrective thinking. TTs are also faced with challenges – challenges of maintaining independence while receiving government funds, or from ‘clients’ who typically want you to support/refute strategies that they have already conceptualised,  and the challenges of making your brilliant research paper count in decision making.  Basically ideas of independence and policy influence that as think tanks we have been debating for a while.   He did say something about the brilliance of a Chinese think tank (can’t remember the name) which, contrary to what people thought in the US, did some good ideologically unbiased research  - which struck me  as a lack of reflexity on the ideological biases of typical American Think Tanks like the Rand Corporation,  or the Brookings Institute.  Raises the perennial question of whether research can actually be ideologically neutral – given that a research frame is always likely to be influenced by the ideological orientation of the researcher.

Nair is a person to watch, and possibly get to know better.  Started provocatively with the statement “We live in an age of great dishonesty”. GIFT apparently has a business model that allows independence, but Nair deplored the fact that East Asian think tanks, either because of their dependence for funding from the government, or, if they don’t have committed funding, their constant pursuit of financial support, leads them to adopt narratives that emanate from the West, while at the same time harbouring resentment against governments, western donors or big companies whose support they seek, but which they realise would constrain their independent research agenda.   He also talked about other players who are capturing the research to policy space – the management consultants and the international financial institutions.   In this situation, he felt (and without as yet having given it a great deal of thought I would agree) that government should create a mechanism for funding TT with a completely independent governance structure.  I guess the private sector could do the same and in the Sri Lankan context, organisations like the Gamani Corea Foundation could be an exemplar of such an independent funding mechanism. Something for me to discuss with the Board.

Some interesting points emerged through the discussion.  The suggestions around independence and policy influence were not new  but made me think that the learning from the Policy Impact Monitoring Project that CEPA/Commsconsult/CIPPEC/ODI carried out for  3ie  really should be documented and shared as valuable source of information about how the research to policy process does, or does not,  work.  An Indonesian woman made the point that it is not only ‘think tanks’ that think (my words) – there are other organisations researching and advocating for different issues – and that they not only have different ways of knowledge generation, but also different audiences, because peoples’ lives are not just influenced by government.   Her example was of organisations studying religious thought in the context of women’s rights in Indonesia, and influencing decision making in the religious sphere.

Oh and by the way met the incoming Chairperson of IPS, replacing Dr W D Lakshman.  Dr Razeen Sally, an Old Thomian and a Visiting Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore.