ACED Strategy to 2030
Africa is entering a decisive decade, with uneven progress on jobs, gender equality, and well-being, and growing economic, climate, and social pressures. One of the most powerful yet underused levers for change is knowledge: evidence and insights that can strengthen policies and practices.
But across the region, a persistent gap remains between the production of knowledge and its use. Much research is misaligned with policy needs, inaccessible, or not embedded in decision-making systems, creating a “knowledge bottleneck” that limits impact.
ACED’s Strategy to 2030 addresses this challenge by strengthening the relevance, accessibility, and use of knowledge so policymakers and practitioners can design and implement more effective and equitable solutions.
“Africa does not lack knowledge. It lacks the systems to transform that knowledge into better lives. Our strategy is designed to change that.”
— Fréjus Thoto, Executive Director, ACED
The challenge we address
Knowledge is not relevant.
Knowledge is not accessible.
Knowledge is not used.
Without change, valuable insights will continue to accumulate in reports instead of shaping policies that improve people’s lives.
Our strategic goals
ACED’s work is organized around three pillars that directly address these barriers:
1. Making knowledge relevant and actionable
We help shape research agendas, strengthen research quality, and translate findings into clear, practical solutions.
2. Making knowledge accessible
We simplify complex research, integrate local and tacit knowledge, and disseminate user-friendly products through multiple channels.
3. Integrating knowledge into decision-making
We provide on-demand advisory services, build capacities, and strengthen institutional mechanisms for evidence use.
Our thematic priorities
We focus on three interconnected areas essential to human development:
• Better jobs: Supporting evidence-informed decisions that expand decent employment, especially for youth and women.
• Gender equality: Ensuring policies and systems respond to the needs and priorities of women and girls.
• Well-being: Promoting environmental sustainability, urban resilience, food and nutrition security, and nature-positive development.
These priorities reflect both urgent needs and high-impact opportunities for African countries, particularly in francophone West Africa.
How we work
ACED is a think-and-do tank that bridges the gap between ideas and implementation. Our approach is defined by:
- A multi-stakeholder process: Starting from real policy challenges, engaging all relevant actors, and co-creating knowledge and solutions.
- Thinking and doing: Running real-world programs to generate practical insights and implementation research—not relying solely on desk studies.
- Knowledge translation over knowledge production: Synthesizing and adapting existing evidence to make it usable and timely.
- Proximity to policymakers: Building deep relationships to understand priorities, political windows, and contextual realities.
- Capacity development and co-learning: Strengthening the skills of researchers, brokers, and policymakers while fostering ecosystems of shared learning.
Measuring progress
Impact in the knowledge-to-policy field is complex, but ACED’s monitoring system focuses on meaningful changes in:
- institutional behaviors
- decision-making processes
- alignment between research and policy needs
- demand for tailored knowledge inputs
- demonstrated influence on policies and practices
We also track signals such as uptake of research agendas, use of policy briefs, adoption of innovative knowledge translation methods, and institutionalization of evidence-use mechanisms.
Our guiding principles
Download the Strategy 2030 Report
Get the full document to explore our vision, priorities, and roadmap in detail.