WHO are the people thinking about Africa’s development and future from the continent itself? After a first edition in 2016 on “Building a Sustainable and Secure Future for the People and Institutions of Africa,” this second African Think Tanks Summit is again organised in Rabat by the OCP Policy Center and the University of Pennsylvania, Think Tank and Civil Societies Program, publisher of the yearly Global Go-To Index.
“Deepening Expertise and Enhancing Sustainability: Insight into Contemporary Challenges Facing African Think Tanks.” Under this year’s theme, the role of think tanks in their societies, but also in driving the diaspora and building inclusive policy dialogue will be debated during the three days event. Some 100 participants from 20 countries will attend, with 40 think tanks from South and North represented.
Sharing experience across the continent and learning from each other will be possible thanks to delegations from the most influential and innovative think tanks in Africa, among them many Moroccan think tanks and notably the African Heritage Institution (AfriHeritage, Nigeria), the African Center for Economic Transformation, ACET, Ghana; the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis, BIDPA; the Center for Democracy and Development, CDD, Nigeria; the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, Senegal; the Ethiopian Development Research Institute, EDRI; le Groupe de recherche et d’analyse appliqués pour le développement, GRAAD, Burkina; IMANI-Africa Center for Policy and Education (Ghana); the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, IPSS, Ethiopia; the Institute for Security Studies, ISS, South Africa; the Swaziland Economic Policy Analysis and Research Centre, SEPARC, as well as the Brookings Institution, the African Economic Research Consortium and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The African Development Bank, AfDB, the Asian Development Bank, ADB, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, will be among the international institutions represented.
High level personalities will also speak, such as Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria, Laoye Jaiyeola, CEO of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Tawfik Mouline, Director of the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies, IRES, Paolo Magri, Executive Vice President and Director of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, ISPI, Italy, Marc Porret, ICT Coordinator of the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, CTED, and Hugo Sada, Special Advisor of the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa.
Source: Realnews Magazine