Dr Wahida Maghraby

Agriculture Policy Analyst, Indonesian Center for Agriculture Socio Economics and Policy Studies, Ministry of Agriculture and former Agricultural Attaché to the European Union

Wahida is an agriculture policy analyst at the Indonesian Center for Agriculture Socio Economics and Policy Studies (ICASEPS), Ministry of Agriculture. 

As well as developing new collaborative projects, Wahida’s focus is in developing, monitoring and improving agriculture policies as well as policy advocacy and dissemination. Wahida is involved in two new ACIAR project and continues her role in participating in other collaborative agriculture policy works with different donors and ministries.

Wahida has a PhD degree in Global Food Studies from the University of Adelaide.  From 2016 to 2020, Wahida was assigned as the Agricultural Attaché to the European Union based at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Brussels, Belgium.

ABSTRACT

Creating Strong Channels of Communication for Agriculture Policy Research in Indonesia

While agriculture is a key sector in Indonesia, agricultural research and development in Indonesia have had limited access to the national budget. From 2010 to 2020, research and development spending in the sector amounted to only 0.014 percent of the national GDP.  The budget allocation was focused on increasing productivity and was biased towards the food crops sector.

To make best use of this limited funding, there are a broad range of skills required for building policy collaboration at different levels – community, regional, national and international. Central to this is communication and building networks. Without opportunities for capacity and network building, the number of researchers with required skills and experience decreases over time.

Advanced communication skills, strong networks with different stakeholders, and an open-minded attitude are considered key to the success of the research collaboration process, strengthening the partnership and increasing mutual benefit between partners.   Indonesia needs an investment in capacity building for early career researchers and policy analysts to strengthen the translation from research into policy.

A proven track record and history of successful collaborative research are strong factors that influence research partners and donors to open the door and provide an opportunity to develop high-quality policy research.   Thus, it is important for research centers and policy units in Indonesia to expand their networks and be very creative in creating strong channels of communication with multi-stakeholder partners to develop a high-quality policy research and increase the impacts at community, regional, national and increase the international influence.

This presentation will provide examples of impacts with policy collaboration successes at the national and international level.