Page 41 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

» Expand the Bridge Programme through partnering with the international
community and governments of underrepresented countries to jointly undertake
targeted, country-specific, capacity-building initiatives for policy analysis,
mentorship, and short-term skills upgrading;

» Identify supply bottlenecks that result in few women enrolling into graduate
studies in economics to boost the pool of highly qualified women scholars and
researchers on the continent;

» Form a women’s alumni network to establish a scholarship fund for women and
a mentorship programme for early-career women scholars;

» Conduct sensitization missions to countries with low women enrolment to
encourage more undergraduate women economics majors to enrol into the
master’s programme, thus boosting the number who ultimately enrol for PhD;
» Place strict quotas on the proportion of support given to universities for
scholarships and JFE/SFSE participation to be allocated to qualified women;

» Conduct technical workshops targeted at women, lusophone/francophone
speakers, and Bridge Programme participants; and

» Create a mentorship programme between resource persons and early-career
researchers, in partnership with local and regional institutions, to support
women, lusophone/francophone speakers, and Bridge Programme participants.

The Purpose

Human and institutional capacity building will enable fragile and post-conflict nations
to conduct graduate-level training of economists as well as policy-relevant research
to formulate appropriate economic policies and sound economic management for
successful reconstruction and sustainable development. Scaling up enrolment of women
into PhD studies will build a critical mass of highly qualified women researchers, resource
persons, and a graduate economics-teaching faculty on the continent.

The Approach

Supply bottlenecks that result in few women enrolling into PhD studies will be identified,
and scholarship funds and mentorship programmes will be established for early-career
women. Strict quotas will be introduced to ensure that a proportion of support given to
universities for scholarships and JFE/SFSE participation is allocated to qualified women.
Similar measures will be implemented in research. This will include the conduction of
technical workshops and mentorship programmes for women. The Bridge Programme
will continue to equip participants from fragile and post-conflict economies with requisite
skills to effectively transit into the mainstream AERC’s training programmes and conduct
economic-policy research.

The potential risks may possibly be: (i) financial constraint; (ii) economic and political

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