AERC Annual Report 2023/2024

The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) is currently in the fourth year of its strategic period, 2020-2025, having completed over half of the five-year planning phase. The year 2023/24 also marks the 35th year since AERC was established in 1988. The Consortium has emerged as a premier institution for capacity-building in the advancement of research and graduate training in economics. It plays a pivotal role in informing economic policies in sub-Saharan Africa. The 2020-2025 strategy is anchored on three key themes of improving quality. This improved quality will ensure its own sustainability and working with regional and national think tanks will develop an effective platform for expanding influence. These three themes provide a new and coherent structure for how research, training, and policy engagement will address the capacity-building issues in the five-year planning cycle. Over the last four fiscal years of implementation of the AERC Strategic Plan 2020-2025, significant achievements have been realised towards improving quality, impactful research and graduate training. Several new collaborative research projects have been initiated, hence providing a range of timely research themes for early career researchers. In the training programme, the development of online teaching materials and virtual delivery of the Joint Facility for Electives (JFE) and the Shared Facility for Specialised and Electives (SFSE) through the AERC Learning Management System (LMS), complemented by the AERC e-Library, has not only enhanced cost-effectiveness, but also broadened reach and standardised the teaching of elective courses across the network universities. The AERC procured Class Zoom Technology to enhance instruction and improve learner engagement; additionally, the consortium acquired Copyleaks Plagiarism and AI Content Detector (including ChatGPT), and Zumedi examination proctoring facilities, for enhanced examination integrity. There has been a deliberate effort towards enhancing inclusivity by gender and regionally in both research and training programmes. Technical training on mainstreaming gender into research and several affirmative actions have been taken to enhance womens participation in both research and graduate training. However, these achievements have not been without challenges. A decline in funding continued to be experienced as current and potential funding institutions adjusted their funding commitments in response to the continuous impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukrain conflict. Additionally, due to political changes, some funding governments shifted their foreign policy and funding priorities. Furthermore, the funding environment continued to be one where funders preferred project funding to core funding. Thus, AERC will direct more efforts to go towards diversifying the resource base as well as designing all programmatic activities to make them increasingly attractive and cost effective in implementation.