AFRICA: Funding boost for local think tanks
DAKAR, 2 July 2009 (IRIN): Under a new initiative international donors are backing Africa-based policy research to improve local decision-making on complex global issues with potentially enormous humanitarian consequences like food security and climate change.
Led by Canadas International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and funded by IDRC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, the Think Tank Initiative will provide core funding for 24 African think tanks over 10 years. 30 million US dollar has been made available for the initial five years.
– African think tanks are essential to development and to disaster preparedness and to climate adaptation, said Cheikh Ba, senior researcher at the Senegal-based agricultural institute IPAR, a grant recipient.
– We can look ahead and anticipate the most urgent crises that our country will face and gather experts and community members and government to find solutions, added he.
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