Page 67 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

their representation in economic policy decision-making. This will help fuel inclusive
economic growth while also improving women’s economic empowerment. The focus
over the next five years on supporting under-represented groups in SSA will also assist
with achievement of SDG Goal 10 on Reducing Inequality, as it will elevate the voice of
those from regions of Africa that are currently under-represented in capacity building and
economic policy matters.

The Strategic Themes

This ToC has three Strategic Themes. In this context the themes are ex ante predictive
statements of where AERC wants to be in five years’ time.

Strategic Theme 1 – Generate consistently high-quality
economic research

Over the last 31 years, the AERC has produced a wide range of high-quality economic
research and graduate training that has had a demonstrable impact on economic policy
in SSA. Over the next five years, the AERC will strive to improve quality of research and
graduate training even further and push the frontier to global standards, including the
consistency of that quality. The quality of economic research and graduate training will
continue to improve, as will the pool of highly qualified locally-based economists and
policy analysts in SSA, generating high-quality economic-policy research outputs. High
quality, robust research and graduate training are fundamental to the achievement of the
AERC’s overall goal. High-quality research instils confidence in decision-makers as to the
veracity of findings and therefore increases the probability that research (i.e. evidence)
will be used in policy formulation. The AERC will also seek to improve the quality of
university graduates to ensure there is a pipeline of well-trained economists that can
support national governments and other institutions to implement economic policy
reforms. This will also improve the visibility of the AERC network globally.

Strategic Theme 2: Achieve organizational sustainability

The AERC will achieve this goal by focusing on organizational and financial sustainability.
In this way, it will continue to provide institutional capacity building support for the many
economic institutions it partners.

Over the next five years, the AERC will redouble its efforts to improve its organizational
capability in a range of areas, including through the diversification of funding,
organizational efficiency improvements, and organizational learning. In addition to
seeking to maintain current funders and re-engaging previous ones and new funders,
AERC will reach out to several targeted African governments to partner in country-specific
capacity-building projects, and it will also target private-sector philanthropic foundations
as a long term resource diversification strategy. The development of this ToC, and the
associated ME Plan, is a key step in this organizational learning process. The AERC will

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