Page 44 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

institutional partners who have similar programmes underway – or who are in the
planning stages – to integrate efforts for greater impact and deliver on this outcome.

Several risks are associated with this outcome. First, whether national think tanks would
be open to support from AERC and the implications of that support on the operations
and mission of individual think tanks as well as on the AERC. Second, whether national
policymakers would be willing to engage with the AERC by country and whether their
perceptions of the quality of AERC research and policy recommendations are favourable.
The last risk involves questions surrounding the continuity of the effort over the long
term, based on underwriting for the initiative, that is the resource pot.

The Activities

The knowledge centre will have both an offline and online component, with integration
between the two. The online component will be a repository of research publications and
policy briefs from AERC and participating think tanks, as well as a knowledge-sharing
platform and news aggregator on economic policy developments and issues.

The advisory centre will involve the offline engagement of noted economists by speciality,
engaged annually, to be linked with ministries and policymakers by country, and matched
by experience and country-based knowledge.

The convenings will be coordinated/promoted online and managed offline by an external
event-management company that will coordinate logistics with a focus on engagement
of participants through a retention programme developed by AERC’s policy division.

The retention programme will track participants following the convenings to measure
understanding of issues; ability to implement policy change; obstacles; and opportunities
for implementing policy change in order to measure the national and regional policy
environment and outcomes.

The Outputs

The following outputs are envisaged:

» A fully technologically functioning knowledge centre by the end of the first year
of the strategic plan;

» Engagement on the platform by think tanks, policymakers, and institutions by
the end of the second year of the strategic plan – with expansion of the centre
through online engagement and support from the third to the fifth year of the
strategic plan;
» Economists identified by subject area and engaged with AERC by the end of the
first year of the strategic plan, with the advisory centre piloted in the second year
for full roll-out in the third to the fifth year;

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