The Joint Facility for Electives (JFE) for 2010 opened its doors for the Collaborative Masters and PhD programmes at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies (KSMS) and was officially opened by Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, the Governor, Central Bank of Kenya. This took place on Friday July 9, 2010. This is the eighteenth and the eighth JFE for the Collaborative Masters Programme (CMAP) and the Collaborative PhD Programme (CPP) respectively.

There are 143 CMAP students and 31 CPP students – giving a total student population of 174 on the two programmes managed by the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). Students in the Masters and the PhD Programmes are drawn from 20 different African countries. This is the largest gathering of graduate students from across the sub Saharan Africa. Furthermore, over 40 highly qualified lecturers and professors, majority of them of African nationalities, are participating in the teaching of CMAP and CPP courses at the facility. The bringing together of students of different nationalities in one facility allows the formation of networks among African scholars that become extremely valuable long after the students have completed their studies. This is an African Union of its own kind because when the students leave the facility; they will have made an ever-lasting academic and social relationship with their colleagues from other parts of Africa.

Prof. Ndung’u in his formal address to the students urged them to take advantage of the available facilities and infrastructure to study seriously and better understand the economics discipline to be able to defend it anywhere, adding that they should never give up until they reach the top. He praised AERC for creating a richness of trained graduates in economics, noting that the organization has made a tremendous contribution in trying to create some capacity in economics in sub Saharan Africa.

The Executive Director of AERC, Prof. William Lykurwa’s message to the students was that we all have a duty to build capacity and inform policy makers in sub Saharan Africa. He encouraged them to aspire to become policy makers and analysts in Africa, so that AERC can have as many alumni as possible, at the helm of policy making organs/institutions in the continent. Prof. Lyakurwa also explained that in the new AERC strategic plan 2010-14, there are plans to scale up capacity building efforts. Dr. Marios Obwona, the AERC Director of Training said that the event was an exceptional one since it was the only single occasion that had brought together all the former and current AERC’s Director of Training. (Prof. Lyakuwa was the first director of training followed by Prof. Ndung’u and then currently Dr. Obwona). He said the CMAP programme has so far produced 1,800 graduates, while 62 have graduated through the CPP. Most of these graduates are employed in government ministries, central banks, economic policy think tanks and universities in Africa. Also present was the Executive Director of KSMS, Prof Kinandu Muragu, the AERC members of staff and students.

The JFE is an annual 14–16-week residential programme where Masters and PhD students are taught a wide range of elective courses. The electives are taught by highly qualified teaching faculty drawn from Africa and beyond. The idea is to ensure that the programmes’ high standards are maintained, as well as to bring students together in a mutually enriching environment. To participate in the JFE, students must have successfully completed the core courses (microeconomics, macroeconomics and quantitative methods) at their respective universities as a precondition. After the JFE, students return to their institutions for comprehensive exams (PhD students only) and thesis research (for both Master’s and PhD students). AERC is the executing agency responsible for resource mobilization, logistics and contractual arrangements.

In addition to opening the JFE for 2010, Governor Ndung’u also presented a CMAP Academic Board Prize for 2007/08 to Ms. Fanaye Tadesse, a former student of MSc in Economics at Addis Ababa University, and current Junior Research Fellow at the Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute. Ms. Tadesse, a fifth recipient of the prize, won the accolade in a competition among all CMAP students in the 2007/08 cohort. Her winning thesis is entitled “Socio-Economic Determinants of Fertility in Urban Ethiopia”.