ACBF has been instrumental in putting capacity at the heart of Africa’s development agenda and demonstrated that building capacity makes economic sense. As a result, capacity building has become a transversal priority in the development strategies of most African countries today. The Foundation has championed the building of human and institutional capacity in the public sector and for non-state actors, including media and civil society and African regional and subregional organizations.
In particular, the Foundation has been involved in building capacity for evidence-based policy making and development planning, debt management programmes and budgeting and macroeconomic management. Also, it has significantly contributed in building the capacity of non-state actors to engage in the design, implementation and monitoring of development policy. The Foundation further supports the media and civil society’s participation in the policy value-chain.
In its effort to enhance effective policy formulation and management, ACBF has invested significantly in strengthening the capacities of African policy institutes/think-tanks and universities. The Foundation has also created dialogue spaces for citizen engagement aimed at bolstering ownership and commitment to national policies and programs at the country level via its Policy Institutes Committee – a network of think-tanks.
ACBF has developed a number of capacity building toolkits such as its results measurement frameworks, country capacity profiles, country policy institutional assessment. Since 2011, ACBF has published the Africa Capacity Indicators Report, which measures and empirically assesses capacity in relation to the Africa’s development agenda.
Last but not least, the Foundation’s support to statistical capacity building is intended to improve measurement and evaluation capacity.
At the regional level, ACBF provides capacity building support to the African Union Commission and implements a successful partnership with most of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) (COMESA, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and SADC) either through capacity building of their Secretariats or Parliamentary Forums or in specific areas such as trade negotiation and regional integration. In like manner, ACBF provided support to the formulation and implementation of key African initiatives, such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
ACBF's 24-year investment in capacity development has yielded many results...
- 35 think tanks created or strengthened; 15 ranked among top performers in Africa, including the Economic Policy Analysis Unit for ECOWAS and other RECs.
- 3000 middle-level managers trained in ACBF-created Public Sector Management Training Program (PSMTP) an initiative tailored to equip African countries with a critical mass of public sector managers with the requisite skills and capabilities to advance development.
- Scores of leaders of African Universities trained as the Foundation has also supported the Association of African Universities to train the leaders of Africa’s higher education institutions.
- An online repository of thesis/research papers from all over the continent established.
- Developed African Capacity Profiles and indicators and country capacity strategies.
