Addis Ababa — For think tanks to demonstrate their relevance and value, they have to find a method that ensures financial sustainability to allow them to focus on pertinent research that leads to effective development policies in Africa. In view of the growing numbers of African think tanks and their potential to influence policy, the 2nd Africa Think Tanks Summit held from 6-8 April 2015 in Addis Ababa made these recommendations on the future of think tanks and the positive role they can play in the development of the continent.
The Summit encouraged and challenged the institutions to focus on six areas: mobilise financial resources within Africa; develop policy maker outreach strategy; harness technology; improve communications; promote equal access of women and youth and focus on security as a policy issue. Delegates also told ECA to pursue its proposal for "An African Research Collaboration Facility" that aims to provide funds from African governments, foundations and institutions to support inter-country collaboration work.
Acknowledging that financial sustainability depends on several factors such as fund raising strategy, capacity issues, image and reputation, relevance, quality of product and services, and communication strategy, the Summit recommended that a task force should be set up to develop a financial sustainability framework for Africa's think tanks. Attracting funding is a laborious task requiring think tanks to develop innovative marketing strategies to increase visibility. The think tanks operate in different environments; vary in size, experience and area of expertise and as such a task force can aid them in defining cogent strategies for their local region.
Delegates agreed that for think tanks to remain relevant and in demand to policy makers, they should continuously scan the environment in order to predict changes that would call for adaptation. Often they narrow the choice of potentially effective policies thus risk being viewed as irrelevant, admitted think tanks. For the think tanks to be relevant and influential, they should present to the policy makers different policy options and applicable solutions, including strategies for ensuring implementation capacity.
The Summit also proposed to think tanks to make more effective use of technology recognizing that different tools are needed for different target audiences and different purposes. Technology, the recommendations specified, should also be a tool to increase research capacity, for example accessing advanced data bases, and a tool to improve project capacity, for example using call centers or SMS messages to disseminate information.
Many think tanks do not have dedicated communications personnel and therefore one of the greatest challenges is communicating research results to policy makers, media and the general population. A solution could be training think tank staff in communication skills, it was recommended. The media, which tends to focus on political issues, should be engaged to focus more on economic and other substantive issues
On youth and women, think tanks agreed they should make research careers more attractive to them, and strengthen efforts to build their capacities.
Lack of security can hamper Africa's development vision making near impossible to implement. African think tanks therefore believe security as a policy issue should be given greater focus.
