AERC - African Economic Research Consortium

• Forschungsstelle: DEZA
• Projektnummer: 7F-00449.05
• Projekttitel Englisch: AERC - African Economic Research Consortium

Schlüsselwörter (Deutsch)

AERC African Economic Research Consortium

Wirtschaft
Politik
Wissenschaft
Recht
Forschung

Kurzbeschreibung (Deutsch)

Das übergeordnete Ziel des AERC ist, die Entwicklung von lokalen Forschungskapazitäten an afrikanischen Universitäten und insbesondere in Bereichen, die von Bedeutung sind für die Entwicklungs- und Wirtschaftspolitik in afrikanischen Ländern. Besondere Betonung wird daher auf angewandte Forschung und deren Relevanz zur Lösung von entwicklungs- und wirtschaftspolitischen Fragen gelegt. Die Aktivitäten des AERC umfassen die Bereiche Forschung (thematische/individuelle und gemeinschaftliche Forschung), Graduiertenausbildung, die finanzielle Unterstützung von Doktorandenstudien sowie Doktorarbeiten und die Verbreitung der von der AERC erarbeiteten Forschungsergebnisse.

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

1           Summary

Partial action 1: SDC supports AERC since 1995 with yearly 200’-230’000 CHF (core contributions). AERC, established in 1988, is a public not-for-profit organization devoted to advanced policy research and training. The principal objective is to strengthen local capacity for conducting independent, rigorous inquiry into problems pertinent to the management of economies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). AERC facilitates, favours and contributes that Africans are educated by Africans in Africa and links together African Universities and Research Institutes as well as top researchers and institutions on African Issues all over the world. The hypothesis goes that development becomes more likely, if economies are managed solidly. A solid management is in turn more likely if active, well informed researchers are at hand.

SDC endorses the strong policy orientation of the new strategic objectives for 2005-2010 defined by AERC. They foresee to further scale up the development of African capacity to conduct policy relevant economic research in a rapidly changing environment, aim to strike an appropriate balance between policy relevance and capacity building as well as ensuring that the products of AERC are available and accessible to the policy community in Sub-Saharan Africa.

AERC therefore actively contributes to the enhancement of good (economic) governance for poverty reduction, with poverty reduction as the principal objective of SDC and governance as a top priority for SDC (see strategy 2010).

AERC receives core and earmarked contributions from bi- and multilateral donors (e.g. UK, F, NL, World Bank, AfDB, ACBF). In addition, African central banks and universities contribute in kind to a certain extent. SDCs contributions amount to about 5% of core contributions or about 2% of the total projected income for the next phase (2005-2010). In addition, SDC is represented on the AERC-Board and Executive Committee by Ulrich Camen, economic backstopper for the Governance Division. Dr. Camen ensures continuity in the SDC AERC-partnership.

AERC requested SDC to continue its support. The credit proposal foresees a yearly contribution of CHF 250.000, whereas the increase of CHF 20.000 is to adjust approximately for past and future inflation.

Partial action 2: The backstopping mandate with IUHEI, Dr. Camen, has run until now under a separate credit no. (7 F-04045, Phase 4). For purposes of facilitation and the close connection to AERC (in the last years more than half of the expenses were for follow-up of AERC) the two projects are merged. However, the collaboration with Dr. Camen goes beyond AERC with Dr. Camen acting as an economic backstopper for the Governance Division (e.g. collaboration on Pro Poor Growth, etc.) The costs are estimated at CHF 40.000,-- a year.

The role of the Governance Division is on the one hand the management of the backstopping mandate, and on the other inputs to strategic guidance for AERC as well as dissemination of AERC findings to SDC and partners.

Projektziele (Deutsch)

Das Ziel der AERC (African Economic Research Consortium) ist, die Entwicklung von lokalen Forschungskapazitäten an afrikanischen Universitäten und insbesondere in Bereichen, die von Bedeutung sind für die Entwicklungs- und Wirtschaftspolitik zu unterstützten.

Projektziele (Englisch)

1           Objectives

Partial Action 1: The principal objective for contributing to AERC is aligned with the objectives of the AERC itself as stated above under 2: strengthen local capacity for conducting independent, rigorous inquiry into problems pertinent to the management of economies in sub-Saharan Africa. It is based on two premises: first, that development and hence, poverty reduction, is more likely to occur where there is sustained sound management of the economy[1] and, second, that such management is more likely where there is an active, well-informed group of locally based professional economists to conduct policy-relevant research. [2]  These capacities are still weak in Africa and there is still a lot of work to be done to adapt economic insights to the African realities as the experience with structural adjustment programs and the Washington Consensus has shown. AERC is considered as one of the few institutions being able to counteract the non-adapted appliance of this kind of reform measures.[3]

The minutes of the last committee of operations confirmed that the idea of phasing out the contribution to AERC was not well defined at the last credit proposal and thus supported the idea of continuing support to AERC when accepting an additional credit (see appendix 1). A list of new objectives for a future collaboration was proposed. They are fulfilled as follows:

·         The principal objective as above stated continues to be valid.

• AERC continues to be successful and a useful network for SDC. We get access to a wealth of knowledge and knowledge holders (see appendix 9 – knowledge management).
• AERC continues to make efforts to increase self-sufficiency. AERC devised a resource mobilization strategy within the new strategic phase.
• The internal governance of AERC has been successfully reorganized. A detailed analysis and appreciation is done in the appendix 4. The argument, that AERC needs external support and monitoring, and therefore SDC, becomes less valid as these functions are well institutionalized via the board. However, in the past our financial and human resource contributions have been highly appreciated. In addition, there are few donors that have assured long-term personal continuity as we have via Dr. Camen. SDC can therefore continue to make a difference via its board representation and physical presence as funder.
• Governance Issues of African Economies are becoming more important for AERC research and activities.
  However, the internal governance structure of AERC insulates the choice of research topics from donor influence (autonomy of programme committee, see appendix4). Physical presence and discussions at board meetings and with resource persons at e.g. biannual workshops are therefore means to convey our concerns to AERC. SDC has made in the past and can make a difference in the future as our development cooperation can be considered as less self-interested as others are.[4]

·         AERC makes additional efforts for vulgarizing research results to enhance its policy relevance. The new communication strategy answers directly to this concern. However, ongoing feedback from SDC on this topic continues to be useful.

In sum the new and old objectives (for a detailed analysis of the old objectives see appendix 5) for ongoing support to AERC are fulfilled and constitute at the same time objectives for future collaboration. However, respecting the spirit of partnership and the mature status of AERC the main objective for the future should be, that the new strategy (we have been implicated via the board, e.g. through representation at the special board meeting in 11/2004 with BZP and Dr. Camen) will be implemented. It constitutes several documents as already mentioned including a log frame and verifiable indicators of performance. SDC especially endorses the strong policy orientation of the new strategic objectives for 2005-2010. In a nutshell, the objectives foresee to further scale up the development of African capacity to conduct policy relevant economic research in a rapidly changing environment, aim to strike an appropriate balance between policy relevance and capacity building as well as ensuring that the products of AERC are available and accessible to the policy community in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Partial action 2: The objectives for continued cooperation with IUHEI, Dr. Camen, derive on the one hand from partial action 1 and on the other from his valuable economic backstopping for the Governance Division. Dr. Camen enlarges our network, helps us identifying resource persons and trends and expands our competences via his own expertise (e.g. financial sector, macroeconomic domains like monetary policy, etc. where SDC has no expertise itself).

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[1] This hypothesis finds empirical backing: Burnside,-Craig; Dollar,-David, Aid, Policies, and Growth, American-Economic-Review; 90(4), September 2000, pages 847-68.

[2] The economic history (e.g. in Asian countries) confirms this hypothesis.

[3] See Van-de-Walle,-Nicolas African economies and the politics of permanent crisis, 1979-1999, Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions series. Cambridge; New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pages xii, 291.

[4] Jean-Claude Berthélemy, Bilateral donors’ interest vs. recipients’ development motives in aid allocation: do all donors behave the same?, Paper presented at the HWWA conference on the Political Economy of Aid, Hamburg, 9-11 December 2004, First draft: November 10, 2004