Who is Willing to Fund Research?

William Ochieng

27 June 2011

opinion

Nairobi — Although I am a professor, which means I am a university teacher of the highest rank, I always feel I cannot genuinely sustain that designation because I am generally poor.

A professor teaches, but he is also expected to do continuous research in order to write books and professional papers, to advance his discipline.

Although I am excited about my university rank, the salary a professor earns is so disgustingly low, it can’t enable him to live in comfort, buy books and do research.

Elsewhere in the world, professors are happily kept in their jobs through research grants dished out by their universities.

But in countries like Japan, Britain, USA, Germany and South Africa ,good active professors rely on foundations for research and conference grants.

Thus, almost every day in the US, a new book is published in each discipline, due to research support by foundations.

What, however, is a foundation? It is an organisation established to provide funds for particular purposes – for example for scientific, religious or cultural researches.

Most such bodies, like the Bill Gate Foundation, are formed by rich individuals who realise they can never “eat” all the fabulous money they made in a lifetime.

So they carefully support various causes locally, or internationally, with their money.

But some foundations arise from self-help efforts – when an organisation solicits for funds from well-wishers and uses the collected funds to support needy causes.

Here in Kenya, the government gives out a stipend for research, money which cannot meet the research needs of the growing number of scholars in the country.

The little that each university gets is jealously guarded, and what they give to individual professors is too little to bother about.

I am, for example, doing research on the historic impact of the River Nile and Lake Victoria on the evolution of society in East Africa.

I am investigating the movement of people and ideas up and down the Nile – between Egypt and East Africa.

I am also investigating Lake Victoria as a transport and economic medium, and the mix of diverse peoples who used it from ancient times to the present.

I reckon that I need, at the very least, some Sh7 million to do a good job, but I simply cannot raise it from my salary.

There are, of course, several foundations in Kenya – the Oginga Odinga Foundation, the Mudavadi Foundation, the Kalonzo Musyoka Foundation, the Harun Mwau Foundation – name it.

It is not clear whether these are political banks or real philanthropic organisations, but I will be writing to them to support my research.

We have reached a stage in Kenya when the very rich should begin to support deserving research projects. When they do so they attract God into their lives.

What, for example, will Mr Mwau do with his colossal Sh50 billion in his remaining life? And what are the Njonjos, Kenyattas, Karumes and Kibakis doing with their wealth?

True, we still have a number of Western Foundations in Kenya. But unlike in the early period, when they simply funded viable research topics, today they have their own research topics, which you either accept or reject.

This has kept many of us away. It is sad the Kenya Government wastes a lot of money on useless endeavours, instead of supporting serious researches and charities.

Prof Ochieng’ teaches History at Maseno University

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