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Review Workshop on Inventory of the Role of Regional Research Organizations in Africa
OSSREA has hosted a workshop on “Inventory of the role of regional research organizations in Africa”. The workshop was held on 22nd and 23rd August 2002 at the Meeting Hall of the OSSREA Secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There were 17 participants who were drawn from OSSREA, CODESRIA, AAPS and a number of academic and research institutions in Africa. In addition to the researchers, the participants of the workshop included the Executive Secretaries of OSSREA (in the last session), CODESRIA, and AAPS, the Deputy Executive Secretary and other officers of OSSREA, the Scientific Coordinator of the Inventory Project, and the Director of the Research and Documentation Department of CODESRIA.
The aim of the workshop was to review the role and impact of four of the regional research organizations, i.e., OSSREA, CODESRIA, AAPS, and SAPES Trust in Africa, based on the case studies carried out by eight researchers, and to put forward recommendations on the proactive actions necessary to make these research organizations more effective and stronger than before.
In general, each researcher was assigned to make a case study of one or two of the four research organisations both in his/her country as well as in another country and make a presentation of his/her findings at the workshop. Accordingly, the following researchers made their presentations on the case studies of the particular organisation/s they covered:
1. Dr. Kassahun Berhanu, on OSSREA’s role in Ethiopia and Tanzania;
2. Prof. John Shiundu, on OSSREA’s role in Kenya and Uganda;
3. Prof. Alois Mlambo, on OSSREA’s role in Zimbabwe and Mozambique (in the latter case, only the prospects for OSSREA’s operations were explored);
4. Prof. Adele Jinadu, on AAPS’ role in Nigeria and Egypt (due to logistical constraints the focus of the presentation was on a historical overview of AAPS, but the case study of the two countries was scheduled to follow);
5. Dr. Kwame Boafo-Arthur, on the role of CODESRIA in Sierra Leone and Ghana;
6. Dr. Céline Angèle Nissack, on the role of CODESRIA and AAPS in Côte D’Ivoire and Senegal;
7. Dr. Luc Sindjoun, on the role of CODESRIA and AAPS in Cameroon and Gabon (since the author was unable to attend, the presentation was made on his behalf by Prof. Babacar Kanté);
8. Dr. Sipho Buthelezi, on the role of SAPES Trust.
In their presentations, the researchers provided an overview of the historical background, major activities, resources, networks, achievements and challenges of the organisations they studied and suggested their recommendations for improving the impact of these organizations. Following each presentation, a discussant was made to comment on the contents of the presentations and the Scientific Coordinator of the inventory project reacted to both the comments and the presentations. The discussion was then further enriched by contributions from the other participants.
At the end of the presentations and discussions, the Scientific Coordinator, Prof. Babacar Kanté, presented a synthesised report of the workshop and the general recommendations emerging from the case studies. During the discussion of the way forward, it was pointed out that the case studies would be revised and submitted to CODESRIA, which is the lead organisation of the project. The synthesis of the case studies is expected to be ready for the CODESRIA General Assembly, which is scheduled to be held in December 2002 in Kampala, Uganda. It is planned to publish the case study reports in the form of a book in the near future.
At the end of the deliberations, Prof. Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed, Executive Secretary of OSSREA, thanked the participants and declared the review workshop closed.