The challenge we address
Africa faces enormous challenges in various areas including jobs, gender, health, food security, climate change, and well-being.
Although knowledge is widely produced to address these challenges, policymakers and practitioners, in Africa, struggle to use that knowledge to design and implement effective and equitable development solutions.
This leads to:
• Sub-optimal policies
• Misallocated resources
• Slowed progress towards human development
This situation is persistent because the knowledge produced is often:
Not relevant
Misaligned with policy needs and not actionable
Not accessible
Hidden behind paywalls, in technical jargon, in the wrong language, and not at the right place
Not used
Decision-makers lacking incentives, capacities, and systems
Our mission
To support African policymakers and practitioners in designing and implementing policies for better jobs, gender equality and well-being by making development knowledge relevant, accessible, and applied.
About ACED
The African Center for Equitable Development (ACED) is a think-and-do tank addressing the persistent gap between the production of knowledge and its practical application to policy and practice.
We think and do.
Unlike traditional think tanks, we would not just survey entrepreneurs and publish recommendations. We would design and run real entrepreneurship programs that create jobs – and in the process, collect practical data to inform better policies.
Unlike traditional NGOs, we don’t stop at implementing development projects. We also conduct research to generate insights that make interventions more effective and scalable.
Our RAU Model - to solve human development challenges
- We start by working with policymakers and practitioners to shape research that actually matters to them – that’s Relevance (R).
- Then, we translate that research into clear, digestible formats, delivered at the right time – that’s Accessibility (A).
- Finally, we work alongside governments and institutions to help them use that knowledge in decision-making – that’s Use (U).
The impact
We track our impact by looking at how our work meaningfully contributes to changes in policy and practice both in terms of tangible development outcomes and systemic shift in the evidence to policy ecosystem.
Creating jobs in agriculture through evidence and partnerships
Supporting women economic empowerment
Integrating nature in urban planning and management
Our partners
Our partners are the backbone of ACED, collaborating to drive impactful, evidence-informed change across African communities.
