Of all the things I’ve learnt after a year of doing research in and about East Africa, the most surprising thing may have been the first. 

A year ago, I discovered that you cannot do research in Kenya or Tanzania without first getting permission from the Government and paying a fee.

The application process in both countries is rigorous. Kenya’s Ministry of Education requires a "comprehensive" curriculum vitae from all researchers, a project proposal (including "hypothesis, methodology, literature review and envisaged application of the research results"), a letter from the research sponsor, and payment of a fee ranging from Sh50 for Kenyan undergraduates to Sh10,000 for Kenyan researchers from private institutions to $250 for foreigners.

In Tanzania, the Commission for Science and Technology subjects researchers to a similar set of requirements and fees. Foreign researchers must pay the Tanzanian Government a non-refundable fee of $50 just to have their applications considered. 

If approved, foreigners must then pay an additional fee of $300. In my experience, it can take four to six months before the Tanzanian authorities render a decision on your application for a permit.

There are a couple of reasons to be appalled by these requirements.

First, intellectual inquiry should be regarded as a fundamental human freedom. The world "totalitarian" springs quickly to mind when I think about a government keeping tabs on researchers by making them submit an application and pay a fee for the "privilege" of simply observing and analysing the world around them. The policy suggests a government that regards intellectuals as subversives and free thought as dangerous.

Second, it is counterproductive nonsense for a government to discourage people from producing knowledge in any field, particularly in the global economy that we now all inhabit.

In the "knowledge economy of the 21st century," as former US President Bill Clinton often called it, knowledge itself will increasingly become the most important component of any country’s economy. 

When knowledge itself is increasingly the foundation upon which societies build wealth, why would the governments of Kenya and Tanzania want to discourage the production of knowledge relevant to their own societies and economies? I can think of no legitimate answer.

It is unclear how widely the two governments enforce their permit requirements. My sense is that anyone who wants access to Government officials or documents, or who wants access to libraries, laboratories, and research facilities at state-sponsored institutions, must submit the application and pay the fee. If so, this practice seriously discourages the production of knowledge in a wide array of fields.

In my own field of legal and policy research, the obstacles that the two governments have erected seem to have stifled an immense amount of valuable research – research that would have assisted in the fight against corruption, in efforts to make the two governments more efficient, and in attempts to improve the day-to-day operations of the judiciary and the police force. 

The lack of empirical research in these areas is truly stunning, and I believe that the roadblocks erected by the Kenyan and Tanzanian are at least partially to blame. In Uganda, where no such requirements are imposed, there is more data available, at least in my field of research.

Even if the permit requirement is only sparingly applied, it is still an affront. The governments of Kenya and Tanzania ought to be encouraging people to do research, not discouraging them. The cumbersome and intrusive procedures imposed by the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments say volumes about the attitudes of these governments towards intellectual inquiry in general and towards the process of adapting to the "knowledge economy" in particular. 

Apparently, rather than reap the long-term economic and social benefits of knowledge production, the two governments would prefer to squeeze undergraduate researchers for a few shillings and foreign researchers for a few hundred dollars at the front end of the research process, then peer suspiciously over these researchers’ shoulders during the duration of their projects.

The two governments should immediately scrap these requirements and fees and, in so doing, send a message that they want research and intellectual inquiry to flourish in East Africa.

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Mr Auerbach is a project officer and researcher at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.