This year’s annual report comes amidst big changes around the global development policy space. These developments have also been accompanied by rapid changes in the research funding landscape. For CSEA, it marks a significant era as the Institutional funding provided by the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) ends. For the past decade, CSEA has been a beneficiary of this funding, which provided major institutional support that enabled the Centre position itself as an evidence-based and high-performing research Centre in Africa.

In order to maintain the successes and progress achieved over the years, CSEA continued to build on its consistency of providing actionable recommendations that influence policy choices. Specifically, the Centre restructured and strengthened its research capacity, organizational structure as well as its policy linkages, communication and outreach to ensure that its research output is channelled into the policy space.

In the year under review, CSEA recorded significant policy impact using evidence from research conducted. However, the recent changes in the policy space underscored the need for the Centre to align its research to priority areas -such as climate change, gender, and social inclusion policies- with several funding opportunities. In response to these emerging opportunities, CSEA began to explore other relevant areas of research. For instance, the Centre carried out a pilot study on livelihood assessment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps to assess their existing livelihood strategies propose the most effective ways to help such individuals to rebuild and strengthen their livelihoods. This study has provided a platform for CSEA to explore more research and expand its capacity on this important development issue.