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principal objectives drive the AERC Research Programme: to build a
credible local capacity for policy-oriented research; to generate research
results for use by policy analysts and policy makers; to promote links
between research and policy; and to encourage retention of high quality
researchers on the continent. In meeting these objectives the Research
Programme has significantly raised the potential for utilization of
researchers’ skills in support of development by expanding professional
opportu-nities through the exposure of their work locally and
internationally, and by building links with policy makers.
To date, over 1,000 African researchers have participated in AERC’s
research capacity building programme. Increasing numbers of them are
occupying very senior positions in government ministries, central banks,
and regional development organizations such as African Development Bank
and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, as well as regional
economic communities, donor agencies at country and regional levels, and
NGOs. AERC network members constitute the bulk of academic staff of
university economics departments, policy research institutes and
think-tanks in a large number of African countries.
With the achievements have come new challenges, challenges that are the
more compelling because of the fluidity of AERC’s operating environment.
To meet these challenges and remain at the cutting edge, the Research
Programme set the following strategies for obtaining its objectives during
the strategic plan period, 2005–2010:
• Building and retaining credible
local capacity for policy-oriented economic research.
• Building partnerships with
academic, national and regional policy research institutes for the
generation and dissemination of economic policy research output and
strengthening the capacity of these institutions as necessary.
• Enhancing the participation of
under-represented categories of AERC stakeholders in research
activities.
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Building and Retaining Capacity for
Policy-Relevant Research One of the challenges AERC faces is to
enlarge opportunities for senior network members so as to retain them in
the network. Another is the need to strengthen the links between policy
makers and researchers at the national and regional levels. Here its
important to also ensure that the thematic research projects address
policy-relevant issues at the country or regional level.
Senior researchers and resource persons have proven their worth as
active participants in the process of producing quality policy-relevant
research outputs, timely enough to meet the needs of African policy makers
and effective as capacity building initiatives. Recognizing the importance
of their participation and the wealth of knowledge they represent, AERC
has established two new honorary distinctions for these network members –
AERC Research Fellow and AERC Distinguished Research Fellow. Qualification
for these honours, approved by the Programme Committee, derives from
participation in AERC activities and levels of publication in
international journals.
To enlarge opportunities for senior researchers, AERC is supplementing
the thematic and collaborative research systems with a
Call-for-Proposals or Special Commissioned Studies modality
that permits screening but does not require proposals to go through the
peer review process. A select set of resource persons will review the
proposals and papers, which will ultimately be published as a collection
or series. The first such "call" will focus on information and
communications technology policy in Africa.
In addition, the participation of senior AERC researchers as plenary
speakers and resource persons will be enhanced. Their involvement in
project coordination and in framework paper assignments under
collaborative research will also be expanded. Special Workshops will
continue to involve senior researchers.
It is envisaged that the increased involvement of senior researchers in
AERC activities will not only serve the capacity retention objective, but
will also help achieve a balance between continuity and dynamism in the
composition of resource persons. A directory of AERC Research Network
members already posted on the AERC website will be regularly updated to
advertise the available expertise and track their career paths. Incentives
will be provided to encourage substantive partnerships among junior and
senior researchers to work together, especially in collaborative research
and special commissioned studies, so as to foster the mentoring of junior
researchers by their senior counterparts.
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Strengthening the Research–Policy Link
A number of changes intend to strengthen the link between research and
policy. New collaborative research projects introduced during the plan
period will, as usual, address highly topical and current policy
issues. To promote ownership and enhance the contribution of these
research endeavours to the policy making process, policy makers will
be involved very early in the process. For example, the new
collaborative project on export supply response is a direct answer to
requests by policy makers and others who participated in the
dissemination conference for the earlier project on African
Imperatives in the New World Trade Order.
More specifically, representatives of regional policy making bodies
will be invited to join the steering committees. Policy makers,
especially from various case study countries, will be requested to
participate in the project initiation and subsequent workshops.
Country case study teams will be encouraged to set up a national
sounding board and, as far as possible, include qualified staff of
relevant policy organs of government in the study team.
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AERC 2005–2010 Objectives
• Scale up the development of African capacity to conduct
policy-relevant economic research in a rapidly changing
environment.
• Fully incorporate economic policy research institutions and
university departments of economics into the AERC network
through innovative partnerships and support.
• Consolidate CPP and dovetail CMAP into it to enhance
synergy between the Research and Training Programmes.
• Foster recognition of "Brand AERC" in Africa and beyond.
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The focus of thematic research has been
fine-tuned to incorporate political economy and sectoral policy
issues, which are of growing concern to policy makers and analysts in
Africa. Furthermore, now that many AERC research network members and
products of AERC training programmes are staff of various policy
making organs of government, the earlier initiative of encouraging
thematic research teams to include at least one member based in a
policy research organization, policy making agency or central bank
will be rekindled. This will not only promote the policy relevance of
thematic research projects, it will also enhance the utility of
thematic research findings in the policy making process. As a matter
of procedure, national dissemination workshops will now form an
integral part of the dissemination activities of collaborative
projects, special workshops and special commissioned studies.
Participants at these workshops will be national policy makers and
other stakeholders. Proceedings of such workshops will be published by
AERC in collaboration with a suitable national policy research
organization and distributed among national policy makers.
Collaboration will be actively sought with regional and global
organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, AfDB, UNECA, UNDP, UNCTAD,
the African Union, and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
The idea will be to jointly organize high level policy seminars, just
as research partnerships with these and other academic and research
organizations in Africa and beyond will be scaled up. As an example,
AERC has undertaken to provide research support to the World Bank and
IMF African executive directors through the Analytical Trust Fund.
This will serve as a vehicle both for building partnerships and for
involving senior researchers.
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Other approaches to building policy
relevance include the following:
• The initiative of organizing
regional dissemination workshops to be attended by national policy
makers as a strategy of breaking isolation of national policy makers
will continue.
• The AERC mailing list will
be much more finely segmented, and publications will be distributed
among targeted recipients who are likely to make effective use of
the materials in their policy deliberations, teaching and/or
research activities.
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New Collaborative Research
Projects • Export Supply Constraints
• Institutions and Service Delivery
• Linkage between Growth and Poverty Reduction |
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• AERC will build partnerships
with academic, national and regional policy research institutes for
generating and disseminating economic policy research output, and
strengthening the capacity of these institutions as necessary.
Enhancing Outreach
Efforts aimed at extending the reach of AERC’s research activities,
which has been a priority over the years with commendable progress,
will be scaled up. In this connection, AERC will continue to undertake
"affirmative action" in favour of under-represented countries, regions
and groups. In order to broaden the geographical reach of the AERC
Research Programme without compromising quality, the participation of
under-represented countries and groups, especially women, will be
enhanced by:
• Proactively seeking the
participation of hitherto unrepresented countries’ departments of
economics as well as research units located within universities and
policy research institutions in the network.
• Supporting more national
research issues workshops in these countries.
• Supporting skill
enhancements through methodology and similar training workshops.
• Organizing follow-up
in-country technical support by field visits and electronic media.
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Moreover, the Research Programme and the
Training Programme are in the process of commissioning a Situation
Analysis of Women in Economic Research and Graduate Training in
Sub-Saharan Africa to establish the factors contributing to the
low participation of women in economic policy research and graduate
training. It is intended that the study will generate recommendations
for ways AERC can contribute to ameliorating the situation. Our
aspiration is that as we seek to respond to these and other challenges
by 2010, AERC will become an unrivalled organization in the business
of utilizing, retaining and building new generation economic
research capacity, geared for improving the policy making
environment in virtually all African countries. This way, the Research
Programme will be contributing even more effectively to the
realization of AERC’s long-term vision of sustained development in
sub-Saharan Africa, grounded in sound economic management and
facilitated by well-trained, locally based professional economists. We
will be counting on the support of all stakeholders in this noble
cause.
Professor Olu Ajakaiye is the Director of the AERC Research
Programme.
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New AERC research themes
• Poverty, income distribution and labour market issues
• Macroeconomic policies, investment and growth
• Finance and micro/sectoral issues
• Trade, regional integration and political economy issues |
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