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AERC Biannual Research Workshop for June 2020

African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) is pleased to announce its Biannual Research Workshop to be held virtually through Zoom video conferencing from 8-12 June 2020.

The Biannual is unique – combining learning-by-doing research, peer review, mentoring and networking to build and strengthen the capacity of early career African researchers. The workshop will bring together economists from around the African continent and globally, fulfilling one of our major core mandates – to strengthen local capacity for conducting independent, rigorous inquiry into problems facing the management of economies in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Concurrent Sessions

Five days of concurrent sessions that covers five Thematic Groups will run from 8-12 June 2020. An agenda agreed upon by Group Chairs and the AERC Secretariat will be shared shortly with all the researchers and the Resource Persons.

The presentations in the Thematic Groups will feature research proposals, work in progress, final research reports, and PhD thesis post-field reports.

The five Thematic Groups cover focal areas of AERC’s thematic research programme:

• Group A: Poverty, Labour Markets, and Income Distribution
• Group B: Macroeconomic Policy and Growth
• Group C: Finance and Resource Mobilization
• Group D: Production, Trade and Economic Integration
• Group E: Agriculture, Climate Change and Natural Resource Management

In the past, AERC Biannual Research workshops have attracted over 200 researchers, academics, policy makers and other economists who participate in our Research and Training Programmes. This time round the numbers will be fewer because the event will be purely virtual given challenges in movement as a result of the novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), which was declared a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO).

The workshop provides a forum for participants to meet within a worldwide network of professionals to address issues relevant for Africa’s economic development.  This provides the researchers with opportunities to apply such research ideas and policy outcome to individual countries. They also provide an opportunity for monitoring the progress and quality of the various research projects sponsored by AERC.

The 52^nd Plenary Session

Following the concurrent sessions, the 52^nd Plenary Session on “Business Environment, Competitiveness, and Economic Growth in Africa” will take place later in June, 2020. Researchers, academics, policy makers, non-state actors and economists will discuss the issue of competitiveness of African economies and the ramifications for development regionally and globally. More details on the AERC 52^nd Plenary Session to follow shortly.