PRI in Media

The policy dialogue organised by the Policy Research Institute (PRI) concluded on Wednesday. In the dialogue, held in four rounds from August 4 to 25, experts urged the Kathmandu-based government think tank to refrain from accepting funds from donor organisations.A reason why most of our research products have gone unimplemented, they argued, is our dependence on donors. “A problem identified by donors and the solution prescribed may not be compatible with the need of the day and the reality on the ground,” a press release issued by PRI on Saturday quoted an expert as saying. “So, PRI should not accept external funds for policy research.”Calling policy inconsistencies the main problem of Nepal, another expert who participated in the dialogue lamented, “We already have a bunch of good policies. However, instead of implementing them, we rush to develop new one every time the government changes. It’s frustrating,” he said, urging PRI to take this issue seriously.The press release did not state the names of the experts.A total of 570 experts participated in the three-week-long dialogue to discuss burning issues of the day, fine-tune policy research ideas, disseminate knowledge products and explore areas of collaboration.