Overview
Progress has been significant in Africa’s capacity development over the past 30 plus years. Even so, capacity deficits remain a significant challenge facing African researchers, policy makers and practitioners in their quest for sustainable development. These deficits continue to prevent the many players in the continent from implementing development strategies and policies effectively. ECAS’s recent engagement with a broad cross-section of governments, private sector, civil society, and development partners show that capacity constraints remain the main barrier to the continent’s sustainable transformation.
ECAS Institute works to bridge the gaps between research, policy and practice by enabling use of data and relevant expertise in decision-making aimed at addressing various development challenges, particularly those pertaining to climate change and sustainable development and capacity strengthening in Africa. We take pride in being a Pan-African Think –Tank.
As an African-led institution, we believe that strong leadership, technical expertise and political commitment is critical to addressing the continent’s sustainable development challenges and harness growing opportunities for socio-economic transformation. In our first 3 years, ECAS has made notable contributions and gained strong traction with several renowned actors. We have also made considerable progress in developing our expertise, infrastructure, policies and management systems, and have built a multi-disciplinary technical staff with expertise in various fields.
Over the next five-years, ECAS will focus on four strategic aims:
To intensify and expand the thematic and geographical scope of our work in generating, impacting and translating environmental knowledge. We will extend our work into East Africa; expand and deepen our research in population change and sustainable development, with a particular focus on the linkages between green economy, environment and development; and increase our work in capacity strengthening, both by generating and translating research evidence on specific development issues and, more generally, by addressing the institutional and individual level capacity bottlenecks that affect decision-makers and practitioners.
To promote innovation and advisory services. We will develop a strategic communications plan and expand our technical capacity in innovative trainings, research and knowledge services; identify new champions within governments and other decision-making institutions; and organize regular meetings to ensure our capacity building agenda is meeting policymakers and practitioners’ needs.
To strengthen internal structures and processes. Because ECAS is relatively young, we will also focus over the next five years on institution building to ensure sustainability. This will include supporting the professional growth, leadership and managerial capabilities of staff and strengthening the internal systems, structures and processes that shape our working culture.
To invest in strategic partnerships and leverage synergies that extend the reach and impact of our work. We will maintain and expand our strategic partnerships with governments, civil society organizations, private sector, academic institutions, implementing agencies and other relevant actors.