Addis Ababa — The Consultative Forum on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment under the theme "The Role of Research Institutions and Universities in Harnessing the Potential of Agendas 2030 and 2063" co-organized by the African Centre for Gender (ACG) and UN Women, came to a close on the 4th of October. The Forum was attended by representatives of various African universities, research institutes, researchers and African think tanks working on gender and development.
Following thought provoking and enthusiastic discussions of the past two days, the facilitator Dr. Dzodzi Tsikata summarized the research priorities identified by the Forum, which included the Global, Regional and National Socio-Economic and Political Developments, and Regional Economic Agendas and their implications for implementing Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Agendas. Likewise, the Forum identified Economic Justice by Reforming macro-economic, fiscal, trade and domestic resource mobilization policies as well as Promoting Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Politics, Policies and Institutions as research preference.
The Forum also deliberated on the importance of the wide dissemination of the research undertaken in the area of gender equality and women's empowerment and its use in policy and academic outlets for teaching. The partakers expressed their concerns about the quality of research on gender equality and women's empowerment on the Continent, its uptake and effectiveness for influencing policy, along with the need to map systematically the state of research in priority areas and their dissemination before embarking on further research. The role of research institutions in knowledge production and dissemination, taking into account the relationship between national and regional agendas.
Participants reflected for a considerable amount of time on the strategies, plans and mechanisms for strengthening research capacity and effectiveness of Gender and Women's studies as well as building networks for effective knowledge production dissemination and policy influence regarding agendas 2030 and 2063. They stressed the necessity of coming up with ways of incorporating the different research outputs into university curriculums and proposed to increase the scale and scope of academia's work, with the involvement of key stakeholders. The Forum highlighted the need to come up with strategies for building networks at the regional and national levels led by a coordinator within the country to map research activities within the national framework. The focus on encouraging exchange of ideas and best practices between the different Universities and research Centres was also emphasised.
The Meeting paved the way for a dialogue between the different African academic, research institutions and think-tanks present in order to lay down a set of objectives and a way forward. Overall it was agreed that the research network facilitated by the forum should not be limited to academia but should also involve other stakeholders by establishing a platform where good practices and research methodologies can be shared and be used as an advisory podium. A consensus was reached on undertaking a mapping exercise to identify who is doing what and institutions willing to participate in the initiative. Moreover, it was decided that the ECA should make the call for thematic leadership.
In her closing remarks, Ms. Takyiwaa Manuh, Director of SDPD underscored that "for the established research networks to succeed, it calls on commitments, continuous linking up and keeping abreast with each other." She went to accentuate the prominence for timely, quality research in order to make a difference in the lives of African citizens and to influence policies that are gender-sensitive. She encouraged members to be modest and start small, stating that "It will be ground breaking to have a research network that is a think tank to call upon on this continent."
