Introduction

AUDA-NEPAD’s Policy Bridge Tank Programme (APBT) aims to engage African Think Tanks to identify and address continental and regional challenges through evidence-based policy and knowledge services. Its main objective is to help translate socio-economic research output and connect knowledge to decision-making to build a solid and interlinked African-driven and evidence-based development programming.

As part of its flagship events, the APBT is holding its first Annual Conference on the theme on African Futures. This year the conference will be held in Addis Ababa from the 10th to the 12th of January 2024 and will be hosted by AUDA-NEPAD Policy Bridge Tank in collaboration with the African Futures & Innovation (AFI) program at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

The event will focus on providing foresight evidence on Africa’s development prospects that is backed by rigorous research stemming from African think tanks. The conference will draw on the contribution from African think tanks/research centrers, the AU Commission, Africa’s eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs), Member States, the diplomatic community and international organisations in Addis Ababa. The in-person conference will bring together experts, academics, policy-makers and practitioners to engage, partake and provide experiences and evidence on Africa’s long-term development prospects. 

The conference will be conducted over two days from 10 to 11 January 2024, followed by a one day, 12th January, foresight training workshop on the African Futures website and the International Futures (IFs) forecasting platform. The conference and training will be for in-person attendance only and simultaneous translation will be available.

Goal and Objective of the conference

The conference seeks to bring together representatives from the diplomatic community, the various Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the African Union system, Member States and experts from academia and policy think tanks active across the African continent. Given unfolding foresight evidence, the conference aims to share expertise and insights on Africa’s long-term development future.

The aim of the conference is to support a structured mobilisation of African think tanks towards the successful implementation of Agenda 2063 through an exchange of innovations in ideas and action. The APBT workshops will inform African governments and regional institutions on application of evidence to public policy with the aim of promoting Africa’s development priorities across the continent.

Over time it is expected that the work done through the African Futures website and the conference in Addis Ababa will result in stronger, more effective development programming and policy-making capacity, a greater familiarity and reliance on data as well as an understanding of the importance of synergies and greater levels of collaboration to reach the outcomes of the Agenda 2063.

The conference and training workshop is by invitation only and a limited number of travel grants will be offered to participating experts and representatives of African institutions. The organisers will cover the participation of APBT TAG think tank members, AUDA-NEPAD staff and RECs with other in-person participation occurring on a self-funding basis.

REGISTER YOUR PARTICIPATION HERE

Preparatory dialogues

AUDA-NEPAD has partnered with AFI to forecast Africa’s development prospects. The African Futures website reflects a unique effort to model and forecast Africa’s development potential using the International Futures forecasting platformhosted and developed by the Frederick S Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver.

Over the past three months, the two organisations in partnership, hosted a series of eight ‘Erudite’ seminars that unpacked the foresight analysis and evidence provided on the  African Futures website. This eight-part series dealt with various themes such as demographics, education, agriculture, manufacturing, the AFCfTA, large infrastructure and leapfrogging, financial flows and governance. The full list of seminars and access to the various documents are summarised below.

- Demographics: Africa’s population future and the impact of a more rapid demographic transition and investments in health on development outcomes [Link to recording] | Download the full report or interact with the results here

- Agriculture: Can Africa be food secure by 2043? Africa’s agriculture futures and the impact of a green revolution [Link to recording] | Read the full Agriculture report here or interact with the results here

- Free Trade: The African Continental Free Trade Area presents a unique opportunity to create an integrated, continent-wide market, a vital step towards building the ‘Africa we want.’ [Link to recording] | Read the full AfCFTA report here.

- Education: Lifting all boats: the effect of better quality and more education on Africa’s development. [Link to recording] | Read the full Education report here.

- Manufacturing: The importance and impact of policies to industrialise Africa. [Link to recording] | Read the full Manufacturing report here.

- Leapfrogging and infrastructure: The impact of leapfrogging and large infrastructure build on Africa’s development potential. [Link to recording] | Read the full Leapfrogging report here. Read the Large Infrastructure report here.

- Governance: How could better governance improve development outcomes? [Link to recording] | Interact with the results here.

- Financial flows: Inward financial flows including aid, remittances and investment have the potential to improve Africa’s development prospects. [Link to recording] | Read the full Financial Flows report here.

The various webinars also presented the impact that ambitious policies might have for Africa’s long-term future in each of these sectors. This eight-part seminar series serves as input into the conference. Substantively the conference will start by showcasing the culmination of the sectoral work presented in the seminar series, consisting of a presentation and review of Africa's development prospects and potential, serving as the keynote and introduction to the event. Thereafter the conference will take the form of parallel working sessions, drawing on the expertise of various African based Think Tanks and Regional Economic Communities. The conference will be followed by a day-long training workshop in which representatives from the various RECs will have the opportunity to engage with the African Futures website and the modelling platform in more detail.

Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Members

						Dr. Denis Foretia, Co-Chair of the Denis & Lenora Foretia Foundation and Executive Chairman of the Nkafu Policy Institute, a leading Cameroonian think tank.
						Dr. Bitrina Diyamett, Founder and Executive Director, Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Research Organisation (STIPRO).
						Dr Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, Executive Vice President of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET).
						Dr Jakkie Cilliers, Chairman of the Board and Head of African Futures & Innovation & founder and former Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
						Ms. Elisabeth Sidiropoulos, Chief Executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).
						Karim El Aynaoui, Executive Vice-President of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Dean of its Humanities, Economics and Social Sciences Cluster. He is also Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South.
						Professor Njinkeu, Interim Executive Director of the African Economic Research Consortium.

For more information contact:

Pamla Gopaul, AUDA-NEPAD, PamlaG@nepad.org

Alize le Roux, AFI-ISS, aleroux@issafrica.org