Africa Focus: Africa urged to create robust think tanks for development

Africa needs to create robust think tanks to help drive its continental and global development agendas, the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) said at an on-going Africa think tank summit held in Zimbabwean resort town of Victoria Falls.

"We believe that African think tanks play a critical role in many respects. We at ACBF believe that if you have think tanks that are functional, more effective and more sustainable, they will be able to conduct policy-oriented research that will enable evidence-based policy making which will result in socio-economic development in Africa," said ACBF executive secretary Emmanuel Nnadozie.

He was addressing a press conference Friday at the start of a two-day 3rd African think tank summit.

The summit, being attended by participants from think tanks across Africa, is aimed at discussing the role that African think tanks should play in helping countries implement the African Union Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This year's summit comes after the first and second African think tank summits that were held in South Africa and Ethiopia in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Nnadozie said African think tanks should play a critical role in building the human and institutional capacity of African governments in implementing development programs.

"Our attention should be on how we can make the think tanks stronger and competitive globally," he said. "As we move forward, we should try to do everything possible to make sure African think tanks are much more effective in influencing evidence based research policy in Africa."

Nnadozie said the ability of African think tanks to make a positive contribution to the development of the continent had become more imperative after the continent recently adopted its 50-year development agenda, Agenda 2063 and an expanded set of SDGs.

While the Millennium Development Goals had eight goals and 18 targets, Agenda 2030 (SDGs) had 17 goals and 169 targets while Agenda 2063 had 20 goals and 34 priority areas.

Nnadozie, meanwhile, said Africa needed to move beyond policy formulation and pay much more attention on policy implementation to accelerate development on the continent.

Ibrahim Mayaki, chief executive of New Partnership for Africa's Development, an African Union strategic framework, lamented that many African governments preferred to use Western think tanks than African think tanks, a development he said was wrong.

He urged African governments to use African think tanks, arguing that these local think tanks were more knowledgeable on African problems and hence better placed to offer useful solutions that fit into Africa's development context.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa deputy executive secretary Abdalla Hamdok said African think tanks need to be fit for purpose, addressing issues of policy based research and helping in the implementation of development policies.

He said African think tanks must also contribute to Africa's peace process considering that the continent is plagued with conflict.

The ACBF was established in 1991 to build sustainable human and institutional capacity in support of Africa's development.

Over its 25-year period of existence, the ACBF which is headquartered in Harare has established around 50 think tanks in Africa but Nnadozie said more think tanks were required to enhance development on the continent which still grapples with high poverty levels, poor transport and energy infrastructure and inequitable economic growth, among other challenges. Endit