EPRC reveals key goals as it celebrates 30 years

The Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) has laid out key strategies to focus its research in the next 30 years. These include maintaining its research independence and provision of timely policy evidence-based user-responsive research to inform and influence policy and practice.

The EPRC opened its doors in 1993 as an autonomous not-for-profit organisation with a mission to generate policy-oriented research and analysis to guide decision-making on socio-economic development in Uganda. Since then, the EPRC has become the most respectable think-tank in Uganda. 
Speaking at the occasion to mark its 30th anniversary this past week, Dr Ibrahim Kasirye, the director of Research of Research at EPRC, said the centre would undertake “aggressive resource mobilisation to ensure continuity of its mandate.”

He said a paradigm shift from focusing predominantly on economic dimensions of policy to a blend of socioeconomic and political economy” is of the essence. 
“Repositioning the trade and regional integration department to continue undertaking research at the local level … with a focus on informing and influencing the continental and global trade policies and development programmes [will be key],” he said, adding that the centre intends to “re-purpose our stakeholder engagements to focus on citizens engagement to build trust and ownership of government policies and programmes, strengthening our relationship with Makerere University.”

Dr Kasirye also disclosed that the EPRC would improve “our capacity-building mandate by developing a sustainable post-doctoral training programme targeting fresh PhDs to prepare them for the job market and the policy world.”
The centre will also institutionalise its secondment programme to create a demand for evidence uptake into the policy processes. Re-instituting its international fellowship programme to attract international scholars to work with EPRC, to cross-fertilise ideas, skills, methodologies and technologies in doing research.

“In our first decade, 1993-2002, we set out to build the national infrastructure for rigorous research on the broad theme of Poverty Reduction and Structural Adjustments,” Dr Kasirye said.
He added: “In the second decade, 2003-2012, we worked to contribute to accelerating the pace of Uganda’s development, and how it could attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In the third decade, 2013 to date, we continued to support the government in its goal of stimulating renewed growth that is inclusive and creates employment, particularly for the youth and women.”

In his keynote address,  Dr Rodolphe Bance, the African Capacity Building Foundation head of the economic and social governance for East African Region, emphasised the importance of  think tanks.
“Think tanks have become key actors of policymaking and development processes worldwide. They provide a crucial platform for generating ideas, conducting research, and formulating evidence based policies,” he said.

He added that in Africa they play a vital role in addressing the diverse challenges faced by the continent, stressing that Africa grapples with governance deficits, conflict, health crisis, low trade performance, and climate change.

He further noted that think tanks serve as engines of knowledge creation, offering independent analysis, policy recommendations, and innovative solutions tailored to the African context.