Page 68 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

also support the sustainable delivery of relevant and timely economic policy research by
focusing on building institutional-level capability of ministries of finance, central banks,
national policy research institutes, and think tanks. AERC will also work on increasing the
participation of women and under-represented groups in economic policy research and
formulation.

Strategic Theme 3: Greater influence on economic policy

In order to contribute to greater stability and growth in SSA using evidence-based
policy, the AERC needs to have a greater influence on economic policy and economic
policy decision-makers. Over the last 30 years, the AERC has had a significant influence
on economic policy, primarily through the graduate training of economists and
their placement in high-level economic policy decision-making positions in national
governments and other institutions. This work will continue, but the AERC will now adopt
a broader, systematic, and more strategic approach for greater influence. This will include
a range of new tactics, including the better coordination of economic policy decision-
makers, the provision of specialised, timely policy advice, and the better use of strategic
communications and digitization.

The Domains of Change

The three objectives or themes discussed above represent the three ‘domains of change’
that constitute this ToC. In essence, there are three domains in which change will take
place: the ‘research and graduate training domain’, as represented by Theme 1 and its
associated outcome pathway; the ‘organizational domain’, as represented by Theme 2
and its associated outcome pathway; and the ‘influencing domain’, as represented by
Theme 3 and its associated outcome pathway.

While these ‘domains’ are discussed separately, they are clearly mutually reinforcing (as
depicted in Figure A1). For example, it is hard to influence policymakers with low-quality
research; further, it is challenging to be influential or to conduct high-quality research
if your organizational capability is low. These domains should be seen as fundamental
components of a system of knowledge generation and learning that are mutually
dependent. AERC’s ToC rests on the premise that changes at the research and graduate
training, organizational, and influencing levels are all required to achieve the overall
goal, which is to foster the implementation of evidence-based economic policy. AERC’s
research and graduate-training outputs need to be of a consistently high quality, as this
inspires trust in policymakers; the AERC and its partners need to be sustainable in order
to replicate this research and in order to influence policymakers; and they need the tools
to effectively influence decision-makers. These three are the necessary and sufficient
conditions required for the achievement of AERC’s goal and the network aspirations.

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