News

The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) held a final review workshop for the collaborative project on ‘The Political Economy and Institutional Structure of Data Policy and Governance in Africa: Opportunities, Challenges and Risks’ (Data Governance Phase II) on 11-12 March 2024. The workshop was held online.

In the project, 15 researchers are conducting on five broad themes of the project, of whom seven are women. The five broad themes are: benchmarking Africa against global best practices on data policy and data governance; identifying institutional structures for data policy and governance frameworks that can be replicated across Sub-Sahara African countries; an understanding of the interface of data interoperability in terms of statistical database merging for robust policy formulation; exploring gaps, priorities, and opportunities in digital revolution, digital technology, and the efficiency of data governance in Africa as well as strengthening the prevailing weak cultural predispositions, data centricity, and governance.

The project steering committee members are Prof. Izak Atiyas, Professor of Economics, formerly of the Department of Economics, University of Sabanci, Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently a Research fellow at the Economic Research Forum, Cairo, Egypt.; Prof. Caroline Ncube, Professor of Law, Professor Caroline Ncube is the DSI/NRF SARChI Research Chair in Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development in the Department of Commercial Law at the University of Cape Town (UCT); Prof. Ogundiran Soummoni, Associate Professor of Innovation Policy and Management at the Wits Business School (WBS) in Johannesburg, South Africa; Dr. Miriam Omolo, Economist and Executive Director, and member of the Board of Directors, of the African Policy Research Institute.