News & Events

The Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa organised a webinar session titled “Data Protection and Data-Driven Enterprise for Africa”, on Tuesday 30th August 2022.
The virtual event brought together key stakeholders from across Africa to examine and provide solutions to data administration issues for private and public organisations. The webinar addressed pressing data governance issues which if implemented, will allow businesses to remain globally competitive by leveraging data without infringing on their customers' privacy rights.
The session also featured presentations from experts such as Dr Vincent Olatunji, National Coordinator of the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau, and Mrs Drudeisha Madhub, Commissioner of the Data Protection Office Mauritius, among others.
The presentations captured the responsibility imposed on African governments to balance the scales between mitigating threats and harnessing benefits from the IT Industry. The stakeholders provided policy recommendations to support cross-border information sharing across the continent, capacity building through training, and the establishment of tribunals to prosecute data law violators.

CSEA’s Executive Director, Chukwuka Onyekwena and Senior Research Fellow Mma Amara Ekeruche, attended the review conference on the COVID-19 Macroeconomic Policy Responses in Africa (COMPRA) project.

The COMPRA Project, funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), in collaboration with the South African Institute of International (SAIIA), was commissioned in August 2020.

With focus on six African countries - Tanzania, Uganda, Senegal, Benin, South Africa and Nigeria, COMPRA seeks to improve the efficacy of various fiscal and monetary interventions and explore viable financing options for countries to meet the financing needed to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for future shocks. It further examines how COVID-19 stimulus responses can be aligned with broader economic, technological and social system transformations to support more climate-resilient and sustainable economies.

Partners from the six COMPRA countries attended the conference in order to assess the progress of the past two years and develop strategies for the future. The conference was held from August 24^th to 26^th, 2022 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

CSEA in partnership with Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) organized a multi-state dissemination event across Kwara, Oyo, Enugu, and Bauchi states from 15^th to 23^rd of August, 2022. These sessions targeted education stakeholders in public, private and developmental sectors, firstly by providing updates on the activities of the RISE project across Nigeria and secondly publishing findings from the research team. The dissemination event also served as a platform to collect feedback from participants who have either been engaged or contributed to research capacity of the project.

The key objective of this dissemination event was to create intervention for stakeholders in education at every level through capacity development. Participants given the appropriate tools can contribute to the advancement of education in their local communities, thereby curbing the learning crisis in Nigeria.

On Tuesday 9th August 2022, Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa organized the 3rd Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Women in Trade (WIT) titled “Strengthening Women in trade in the African Region.” The event was organized in collaboration with the Trade Facilitation Office (TFO) Canada. The hybrid session, held at the Abuja campus of the African School of Economics, featured presentations from our Research Associate, Augustine Iraoya and Dr. Teddy Samy of TFO Canada. The presentations captured the case study and SMEs Survey findings of their research in Nigeria and Ghana.  In attendance were stakeholders from the Federal Ministries of Women Affairs and Social Development, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, African Women Entrepreneurship Program (AWEP), Association of Women in Trade and Agriculture and other women-related organizations. The stakeholders provided insights and suggestions on policies and actions that would support more inclusion of women and address the binding constraints to women empowerment in domestic and international trade.

CSEA in collaboration with the African School of Economics organized an in-house seminar meeting. The session featured a paper presentation by Narrelle Gilchrist from the Politics Department, Princeton University, and a sequel panel discussion facilitated by Tunde Salman, Hussaini Abdu, PhD. and Dr. Ndubuisi Nwokolo.

In the session, Narrelle unveiled her paper titled “A Way to Mitigate Ethnic Tension? Re-examining the Ability of Ethnic Federalism to Reduce Group Grievances in Nigeria.”

The paper examined the experience of ethnic federalism in Nigeria to show how differences in the design and enforcement of decentralization determine its ability to mitigate ethnic conflict. It also compared ethnic federalism under the 1979 constitution with federalism under the 1999 constitution and then studied the experiences of two different regions - the Niger Delta and Kaduna.

The paper finds that ethnic federalism can reduce ethnic tension, but
only when it is well designed and well enforced relative to a group’s specific grievances.

The event was held on Thursday, July 28, 2022 at the African School of Economics, Abuja Campus.