Page 79 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

Outcome Pathway 3 – Influence

Enhancing the AERC’s influence and shifting from a passive to a proactive stance regarding
economic policy decision-making in Africa is a cornerstone of this ToC and of the AERC’s
2020–2025 Strategic Plan, and it will form a foundation for the AERC for many years to
come. In order to have a greater influence on economic policy, which is the objective
of this domain area, the AERC needs the strategies, programmes, and tools required to
exert influence. It needs to proactively engage with economic-policy stakeholders and
find ways to be relevant to decision-makers, while supporting the broad range of existing
economic-policy influencers in the region.

End-of-Strategy Outcomes

These are the measurable and specific outcomes the AERC seeks to achieve by the end
of 2025. These indicate progress under the ‘influence domain’. The two end-of-strategy
outcomes pertaining to this domain are:

3.1 Improved cooperation and information sharing on economic policy across Africa; and

3.2. Improved proactive policy engagement and outreach.

In the context of this outcome pathway, improved cooperation and information sharing
specifically relate to improvements in the availability and accessibility of relevant
economic policy-related research and knowledge to a broad range of actors (including
decision-makers and policy influencers), and the improvements in coordination that
are required to generate and communicate such information. At present, coordination
amongst economic policy influencers and amongst influencers and economic policy
agencies is weak. The AERC has a central role to play in strengthening both forms of
coordination. There is a need to harness the full suite of economic policy knowledge
that resides across Africa to address pressing economic policy issues in creative and new
ways. As Africa’s leading economic policy body, the AERC has an important anchor role to
play in this area. By drawing on its convening power and establishing new and innovative
platforms for cooperation, the AERC can have a significant influence on economic policy
decision-making.

In order to be influential, the AERC must adopt a targeted, proactive and strategic
approach to communication. Over the next five years the AERC will transform from an
organization that indirectly and passively engaged with policy matters, to one that
proactively and strategically engages in policy debates. It will be more directive and
tactical in its policy engagements and deploy a wide range of new and innovative
methods to communicate more effectively. By developing new forms of cooperation and
information sharing, and by transitioning to a more proactive policy-influencing stance,
the AERC will have a demonstrable influence on economic policy decision-making.

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