Research Business Development in Uganda

Jacob Waiswa
Peace and Conflict Center
P.O. Box 7062,
Makerere University
Kampala-Uganda
jwaiswa@arts.mak.ac.ug

Research is most demanding activity everyone can ever face. It calls for both intellectual and physical energies. It calls for an effective plan and subsequently getting committed to it to its very successful end. Time, commitment and patience are other special considerations.

Before its start, a schedule is set specifying time of engagement with research while along the way researcher ensures total commitment to get through it as planned.

And of course, so many attractions show up during the course of the research study or otherwise get frustrated and disappointed along. Being patient and sustaining it becomes the answer as researcher looks more to its end than really enjoy doing it.

Whatever the intentions of the research, it is never just about the data collector. The community among which researcher works is put into perspective by, for example, anticipating appropriate time to meet them, presentation of clear information, being respectful showed not only in speech but the dressing option, and the burden of responding to so many tiring and heavily time consuming questions. Along the way they tire and demand not to continue.

It becomes an abuse and ill-treatment to take them on further than the time they are willing to give. The other aspect that researchers often elude is the question of benefit of the study to the interviewees. Such is often either deliberately omitted during the induction of the prospecting interviewees or not clearly mentioned whilst carrying out interviews.

At more advanced stages is the question of paying for interviewee’s irreplaceable time. That has been criticized much because of the ‘negative’ influence it can have on the nature of responses made.

Research is a business to many firms that yields high incomes and helps to offer part-time employment to new graduates. Those employed to carry out data collection task are equally pressed hard to accept low wages to minimize firm’s cost of operation. Besides they equally breakdown owing to the huge target of work demanded by their employers.

The wages can be so low that they cannot sustain efforts of interviewers throughout the project time or just fairly ok to sustain such efforts but with no savings for them to make, or just good enough to motivate interviewer met every requirement of the study. Fortunately or unfortunately, the implication of the wages verses the cost of living will definitely affect the outcome of the results.

A hindrance, very common in Africa is weather, but rarely put into perspective during the planning phases of research. When heavy rains start, interviewers are not well protected from the heavy rains, while during warm temperatures they are not well facilitated to deal with dehydration.

So, because of such conditions, interviewers tire easily, resort to short-cut and unauthorised ways to generate research information, or postpone the day’s task to some other enabling day to gather information.

Often denied fact is failure to acknowledge that the selected tools of data collection are best understood by its designer rather than the one hired to make use of it. The second-placed user may completely get confused by it or make mistakes. To the very worst, pretesting is characterized by defense of errors detected rather than make corrections to avoid unnecessary ambiguities and questions that do not make sense to the interviewees.

Since disagreements over usage of verbs and interpretation of questions consume a lot of time, a stage is reached when all parties will agree to disagree or compromise to have a question error stand.

The work-load set by research firms seeks to minimize the cost of operation. In most cases such targets are unrealistic dreams –convincingly made real for the hired person to become a donkey to reach them. The huge work-load becomes a critical source of stress –leading to constant aches, fatigue, burn out, and loss of interest just mid-way to the end of the task.

Those prompt interviewers to quit, to adjust the procedure of research, and to go against the instructions as coping means. More investment in the area of research and better remuneration owing to the huge benefits research comes with like efficiency and effective of programming and of public goods and services delivery makes it meaningful.