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African think tanks relevant despite challenges
Think tanks play a powerful and influencing role in Europe and North America but in Africa they struggle not only for acquiring funding but also for finding and defining their role in a changing and challenging continent.
“The enormous economic growth Africa has had or continues to have, has made little dent on poverty. Think tanks can interrogate this African rising narrative and suggest ways in which this growth can be shared,” suggested Abdalla Hamdok, the ECA’s Deputy Executive Secretary, to think tanks, policy makers, governments and academia at the opening of the 2nd Africa Think tank Summit currently taking place in Addis Ababa.
With “The Rise of Africa’s Think Tanks” as the Summit’s theme, participants will share experiences in how best to make think tanks relevant. As Mr. John Omiti, the Executive director of Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis said, “help us to determine how we demonstrate impact and relevance and how we can strengthen the means of networking.”
Think tanks have a potential to close the gap between governments and the public by providing space for discussion, and developing new concepts. Through rigorous research, think thanks produce ideas. Africa right now, needs a lot of practical ideas but one of the challenges of think tanks lies in their inability to communicate, either to their audience or to the public in explaining research results and impact thereof, participants heard.
Mr James McGann, Director of Think Tanks and Civil Societies Programme at the University of Pennsylvania pointed out “policy makers don’t understand us and don’t know how to use us.” Despite several regional challenges, he urged think tanks to “seize the opportunity to develop a collective response to challenges.”
Mr. Hamdok proposed that think tanks could have a role in scenario development, in linking this development with the African Union’s Agenda 2063; and they could advance ideas on translating Agenda 2063 at the national level.
Africa has 7.06 % of the plus 5000 think tanks registered in the world with North America topping the list at 30% of the market. However, Mr. Roger Atindehou, Manager for Eastern and Southern Africa Operations Department at the Africa Capacity Building Foundation, predicts an “expansion in the number of think tanks,” but points to the “lack of diversity in funding as compared to think tanks in North America and Europe.”
After one delegate highlighted, “the continent (Africa) is full of written dreams,” participants suggested think tanks could also help start initiatives that can turn these recommendations into practice.
The participants hope to leave the Summit with concrete ideas on better communication of research results and ideas on how to work with governments to make ideas applicable to policy. African think tanks have to engage support from the continent, delegates stressed.
