Technical Advisory Panels & Networks

Since the dawn of the new millennium, it has become very evident that knowledge and information are key factors in a country's development process. To promote rapid economic growth and social development in a rapidly globalizing world, countries and regions will need to raise their understanding of, and access to, knowledge and information about what works and what does not. Development policy management, effective public sector reform and management, the application of science and technology and effective sectoral planning and management are among a host of areas through which knowledge has contributed significantly to growth and social development. Countries and regions that will sustain rapid growth rates in the 21st century will be those that are capable of effectively applying knowledge to the development process.

Despite the important role knowledge and information stand to play in economic growth and social development, the 20th century ended with a huge knowledge gap between Africa and much of the rest of the world. There is no significant evidence that the gap is narrowing. Within the continent, not much is shared in terms of what is known, worse still, ability to tap the growing stock of knowledge outside the region is limited by the continent's poor access to the rapid advances in information and communications technologies that have tremendously revolutionized the way knowledge and information are generated and shared. In spite of the handicap, Africa has to exploit opportunities to effectively use knowledge to enhance economic growth, reduce poverty, tackle HIV/AIDS and promote sustainable development. This is a challenge that must be addressed.

To address this challenge, African countries must explore options and opportunities to leap onto the transitional path to becoming knowledge-based economies. One of the potentially effective tools is the promotion of the establishment of thematic networks to generate, scan, share and encourage effective utilization of knowledge in various areas of their development efforts. To this end, the Foundation has put in place, as part of its efforts to strengthen the generation and sharing of knowledge for managing development in Africa, a program to establish Technical Advisory Panel and Networks (TAP-NETs) as well as Country Level Knowledge Networks (CLKNets). This program will help the Foundation and African countries to participate more actively in sharing capacity building and development management knowledge and information. The program is geared towards encouraging the emergence of communities of practice among development stakeholders in the Foundation's core competence areas to facilitate knowledge sharing for good governance, sustainable growth and poverty reduction. The TAP-NETs and CLKNETs are therefore expected to constitute some of the major instruments for generating and sharing knowledge. The TAP-NETs will be established in each of the six core competence areas of the Foundation, while the CLKNets will operate in one or more core competence areas. By the end of the year, the Foundation had launched four TAP-NETs in the following areas: Economic Policy Analysis and Management (EPANET), Public Administration and Management (PAMNET), Financial Management and Accountability (FIMANET) and Professionalization of the Voice of Private Sector and Civil Society (VOICENET). The two remaining TAP-NETs in the areas of National Statistics (STATNET) and National Parliaments and Parliamentary Institutions (PARLIANET) were established at a launch meeting on October 23-24, 2003 in Harare, Zimbabwe. It also sensitized countries to the concept, objectives, activities and expected impact of the CLKNETs.

A workshop to formally launch an African Policy Institutes Forum (APIF) was held on 15-16 November 2004 in Harare, Zimbabwe by the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). The two-day workshop effectively established APIF as a continental knowledge network whose core mandate is to promote knowledge generation, dissemination and sharing among African applied policy research centers and specialized training institutions and also provide a platform for the review of leading issues in development, including capacity building with a view to strengthening the development process on the continent.
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CLKNets will be established by the Foundation to support and strengthen the emergence and growth of country-specific communities of practice in the management of development policies and programs. These communities will offer policymakers, policy analysts and development practitioners tools for harvesting ideas, seeking responses to development policy issues and accessing information on best practices and lessons of experience in the management of specific economic policies and programs. Thus, essentially, the CLKNets will serve as tools for generating, scanning, sharing and promoting effective utilization of knowledge for managing development at the country level.

It is also envisaged that the CLKNets will provide portals through which countries' development experiences and policy studies, among others, will be easily accessed.

A typical Country-Level Knowledge Network will provide for the following, among others:

A network of policy centres, professionals, practitioners and academics with a view to forming a community of practice that will collectively reflect on development issues, pose questions and propose solutions that could provide inputs into the country's development efforts
Members of the community will from time to time share information and knowledge based on their experiences, research and interactions from which it could develop best practices and policy as well as program guides that could be of value to the government and other development stakeholders
The community will serve as a peer review mechanism for policy institutes' research and policy studies and help to raise the utility value of their products and services
The community will support activities, which may include the following:
- Sourcing and dissemination of best practices that are of relevance to the country in the management of development policies and programs
- Documentation of operational experiences and lessons in policy and program design and implementation in the country
- "Scanning globally" and commissioning studies to generate knowledge and synthesize information from documents and reports to fill identified information and knowledge gaps that could help spur growth and development in the country
- Organizing short, audience-specific and theme-driven seminars and workshops to share knowledge and information
- Synthesizing research findings for dissemination
- Supporting publications
- Maintaining a rolodex of subject-matter specialists on specific policy issues or development programs
- Maintaining a web site, which will offer a portal on its activities and encourage virtual exchanges as well as stimulate the country's nationals in the Diaspora to make their contributions to the development process. The Foundation will provide technical support to CLKNet host institutions in the design of the web sites.
Other activities of the Networks may include support for:
- National policy seminars, workshops, conferences and economic summits focused on issues in the management of national development, review of national development policies and strategies, reform programs, among others.
- Exchange and collaborative programs among national institutions in the form of sabbaticals, secondments, internships, etc.
- Specialized data survey and collaborative research to guide policy planning and /or capacity building in any of the Foundation's core competence areas.
- Special studies to document or publish materials of value to the development management process, to guide institutional reforms, to strengthen sectoral policy and reform programs.
- High-level stakeholders' consultative meetings or meetings of national experts and /or professional associations, which contribute to development policy planning and management or strong participation of stakeholders in the development management process.
- Skills transfer programs, including strengthening understanding and application of information and communications technology.

For the establishment of a CLKNet, the Foundation will provide resource support depending on the scope and scale of the Network's activities. Network promoters will be encouraged by the Foundation to seek co-financing support from other donors to enhance their operations. The Networks are expected to be set up and managed by existing well-established policy centers and specialized training institutions with internal capacity to support their operations and management.

Expression of interest by ACBF-supported institutions or request by non-ACBF policy institutes for technical and funding support for the establishment of Country-Level Knowledge Networks should be forwarded to:

The Executive Secretary
The African Capacity Building Foundation
7th and 15th Floor, Intermarket Life Centre
Cnr. Jason Moyo Avenue/Sam Nujoma Street
PO Box 1562
Harare,
Zimbabwe