Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
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Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
Adebayo Olukoshi
Executive Secretary
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop x
Canal IV
BP 3304, Dakar 18524, Senegal
Telephone: +221 825 98 22/23
Fax: +221 824 12 89
E-mail: codesria@codesria.sn / executive.secretary@codesria.sn
Website: http://www.codesria.org
Dr. Francis B Nyamnjoh, Associate Professor, Head Publications and Dissemination, francis.nyamnjoh@codesria.sn or nyamnjoh@yahoo.com, Tel.: +221 825 98 14, Fax: +221 864 0143
Description
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is an independent, pan-African, non-governmental and not for profit organization established to develop Social Sciences in Africa. It serves African research institutes, the social science faculties of African universities and professional organizations. It was established in 1973 as an independent pan-African research organization with a primary focus on the social sciences, broadly defined. It is recognized not only as the pioneer African social research organization but also as the apex non-governmental centre of social knowledge production on the continent.
CODESRIA’s principal objectives, as spelt out in its Charter and these include the facilitation of multidisciplinary research, the promotion of research-based publishing, the building of capacity among African researchers at all levels through a strong training program, the promotion of the principle of academic freedom, and the creation of multiple fora for the exchange of views and information among African researchers.
CODESRIA achieves its objectives through exchanging and disseminating information relating to research, training and publishing activities; promoting translation into African languages, as the case may be, of important social science publications and documents; reinforcing the research and training capacity of African universities, through the provision of fellowships and grants; organizing working groups, seminars and conferences; promoting the exchange of academic staff among African universities and research institutes; and, issuing and disseminating publications relevant to the activities of the Council.
The wide array of CODESRIA’s core research activities which remain the main framework for the Council’s intervention in the African Social Science community are structured and organized into the National, Multinational and Trans-national Working Groups, as well as the Comparative Research Networks. The Policy Oriented Research projects serve as an important basis for operationalising research findings in favor of policy actors/actresses and civil society organizations. Collaborative research projects are undertaken from time to time in cooperation with other research organizations within and/or outside Africa, as well as with other partners such as the United Nations and its family of agencies and organizations. CODICE plays a critical role in supporting the research agenda of the Council through the provision of bibliographic and related services.
The founding members of CODESRIA were driven by a determination to combat the dispersal and fragmentation of knowledge production on the continent by creating a forum in which networking on a continental scale would be encouraged as a central element of its work. Equally important was a desire to breakdown disciplinary and linguistic-geographical barriers to scholarship in the African research community.
The Secretariat is structured into three scientific departments: Research and Documentation; Publications and Communication; and, Training and Grants. There is also a Department of Administration and Finance which offers support services to the scientific departments. Each department is led by a senior program officer recruited by the Executive Committee; the work of the senior program officers and all other members of staff of the Secretariat is supervized by the Executive Secretary. The Executive Secretary plays an intellectual leadership role, raises funds for the financing of the Council’s activities, signs all contracts on behalf of the Council and undertakes representational duties on behalf of the African social research community.
Over the last 34 year CODESRIA has attracted funding from many sources. Historically the main funding partners have been the Scandinavian Governments, Sweden through Sida-Sarec; Denmark though DANIDA, Norway through NORAD and the Dutch and Canadian Governments, all of whom have research and development allocations. Lately the African Capacity Building Foundation has given significant support to the core activities of the Council. The Government of Senegal has made a major contribution to the Council over the years and deserves specific mention, particularly its contribution to the Academic Freedom rights of the Council. Other African Governments continue to support the Council through the facilitation of forums to which CODESRIA can invite participants.
CODESRIA enjoys two types of funding: core, collaborative and/or project donors. Core donors support the Council’s agenda as outlined in the proposal documents sent out to them, and give support over a number of years. The Collaborative and/or project Donors support joint projects and/or request the Council to undertake specific research work on their behalf. The major core donors are as follows: The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF); The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA); The Danish Foreign Ministry; The Dutch Foreign Ministry; The Ford Foundation; The Government of the Republic of Senegal; The Norwegian International Development Agency (NORAD); and The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). On the other hand collaborative donors include; Childwatch International, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the International Institute of Social History (SEPHIS), the International Institute for Educational planning of the United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization (IIPE), Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), the Partnership for Higher Education and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). All these are previous and current donors.
Track Record
A key test of CODESRIA’s relevance is its ability to identify the needs of the African academy and then formulate these into programs that the academy is mobilized to help animate. In this connection, the council has made a number of contributions over the last 50 years to the society.
The most remarkable contribution is the Council’s support for the development and survival of a networking culture among African social scientists. This networking occurs on an intellectual agenda defined by Africans to address issues relevant to the continent and the rest of the world. In establishing these networks, the Council facilitates a dialogue between the social sciences and the humanities as part of the effort to ensure that social knowledge production in Africa is holistic. Besides, other regional and sub-regional networks draw their inspiration from its work and/or are modelled after it.
Through its networks, the Council not only established a bridge across linguistic/geographical barriers on the continent but also between African researchers and scholars from other regions of the world, including Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and North America. CODESRIA’s role as an African window to the world is one which is widely recognized.
Further, the organization played a central role in assisting to redress the crises of the African academy during the 1980s and 1990s by ensuring that a critical mass of senior, post-doctoral level scholars or those with equivalent experience on the continent retained a culture of active research. This included field visits and time-off for concentrated reflection, participation in local and international scientific conferences, publication in scientific journals, etc. CODESRIA also strengthened the African Academy by giving limited funding, for distressed academics faced with persecution by incumbent political authorities or university administrators for matters which border on the independence and/or integrity of scholarship or simply for holding differing views. This program played a key supportive role for scholars at a time of intense contestation of the African political space during the 1990s.
The Council has helped reduce some of the problems of capacity in the universities associated with the twin and inter-related problems of politico-economic crises and the brain drain through the 7 per year methodological workshops that are held in each sub region: Two special ones for Nigeria (due to population size) and Lusophone Africa; the five (Gender, Governance, Health, Child and Youth) Institutes the Council. Further, the Annual Social Science Campus; the textbook–writing project; and the defunct reflections program are part and parcel of this.
Besides, the Council facilitated the alleviation of the African book famine of the 1980s through its robust publishing program under which CODESRIA Books were distributed free of charge to university and research institute libraries across the continent. This publications program which, in many instances meant that CODESRIA Books accounted for the bulk of the new accessions in many libraries was supplemented by the services rendered to individual researchers by the Council’s documentation centre, CODICE, whose bibliographic database was consciously enhanced to ensure that African scholars could keep abreast of trends in the world of ideas. CODICE’s services to the national and multinational working groups of the Council, as well as the various institutes, included the compilation of a bibliographic reference for each of the researchers involved.
Lastly but not exhaustively, CODESRIA’s work gradually integrated members of communities who otherwise tend to be marginal to or are marginalized from the African intellectual universe. Success in this area was particularly strong with regard to the raising of consciousness about gender and generational issues, even if the point ought still to be underscored that there is considerably more room for greater progress to be made. The point cannot, however, be denied that in addition to increasing the role of women and the profile of gender in its work, the Council is probably the only continental platform where the four generations of African social scientists that exist meet regularly.
Challenges
Despite the fruitful past of the Council, it still finds itself confronting many challenges in the current environment. Although it is a pioneer, the fact that many national-level and sub-regional institutions have been established since the end of the 1980s suggests that the Council cannot take its continued existence as a serious player in the African intellectual milieu for granted. Out of this consideration emerge a number of things, including the necessity for the Council to constantly carve a niche for itself while simultaneously seeking to build links with the other independent research organizations in order to minimize a duplication of efforts. Also, the need for the Council to review the quality and speed of its program delivery in order to meet the aspirations and expectations of the community of scholars is imperative. The innovation which is called for in this area should go hand-in-hand with a wholesale program review that is designed to respond to the changes in the landscape of learning and research across the continent as is recommended in the broad Charter objectives of the Council.
The necessity for the Council is to increase the presence of its work in communities which still remain marginalized, whether these communities be defined by geography, language, gender, generation, discipline, or methodology. In this connection, special initiatives need to be considered and put in place over the medium term to reach these communities and in so doing enhance the credentials of the Council as an institution that is representative of the diversities of the community of scholars it serves. In addition to incorporating more stakeholders, the Council should reform its internal governance at the Executive Secretariat not only to re-build its foundations as an institution in the service of a community of scholars but as one which is set to meet the challenges of the next phases of expansion and institutionalization as a modern, forward-looking and coherent organization which is professionally managed. The Executive Secretariat and the operational costs which it manages eat disproportionately into the resources allocated to the fulfillment of its scientific mandate. This calls for innovations in the mode of program delivery that would allow for an expansion at that level without falling into the danger of producing an over-bloated staffing situation in the Secretariat; it also has implications for investment in equipment and staff training designed to raise productivity and enhance professionalism at all levels.
In this case, there is need to ensure that the intellectual aspirations of those at the helm of the Secretariat do not overshadow or get conflated with the popularly defined mission of the Council while simultaneously seeing to it that improvements are brought into the quality of scientific life in the Secretariat. One related objective that needs to be constantly kept in mind is the question of ensuring that the Council remains a platform that is open to all shades of opinion that are represented in the African academy. If this is successfully attained then the Council will raise the quality of its scientific output. However, quality assurance also entails the need for innovation in the way in which the Secretariat works with various research networks which it supports as well as the way in which the networks organize themselves.
The other challenge entails addressing the question of how to reach out more effectively to the African policy community without having to tailor the Council’s programs and activities to narrow or narrowly defined policy needs.
Lastly, there is need to ensure that the Council is able to raise the level of core funding which is available to it and in so doing, reverse the increasing share of its activity budget taken up by the special programs and collaborative projects. The necessity for the Council to prepare itself for the possibility of a dramatic shift in donor attitudes and interests in a direction which might either undermine the established principles on which the organization functions or even challenge the very raison d’être of the institution is a potential obstacle.
Opportunities
The Council has many opportunities that present themselves both directly and indirectly. For instance, amidst the changes which have characterized the landscape of knowledge production in and about Africa, CODESRIA enjoys the distinct advantage of still being the only genuinely pan-African institution that remains dedicated to the goal of consciously transcending all barriers to research and combating the fragmentation of knowledge production. Moreover, the Council enjoys the historic advantages of being a pioneer that is known and tested not only among the community of scholars but also among funding agencies. This advantage is critical in a period of uncertainty and flux such as the one Africa is currently traversing.
Notably, the Council enjoys the distinct advantage of being able to draw on a wide pool of goodwill from its members, many of whom are often prepared to go beyond the call of duty to defend the integrity of the institution, but also of donors who have often shown an uncommon degree of understanding for the founding aspirations that led to the establishment of the Council.
At a time when on account of funding difficulties many universities have become terrains which are constrained in one form or another, CODESRIA has the opportunity of being an institution which can afford to be at the cutting-edge of innovative responses to the crises of higher education and advanced research in Africa. It also has an opportunity to reinforce its role as an “incubator” for the reproduction of the African academic community but also a credible site for experimentation.
The Council retains its head start in serving as a bridge not only across the barriers that militate against networking in Africa but also between Africa and the rest of the world, a role which it has played credibly since its founding and in which it has accumulated a great deal of experience. Besides, via these networks with a diverse collection of scholars drawn from the different disciplines and also reflecting the four generations of African social scientists, the Council has a distinct competitive edge.
Finally, the Council is the only research organization with a continental reach and an active presence in 38 countries spanning Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone and Maghreban Africa. It therefore finds opportunity in projecting the African voice through a consistent policy on the publication and dissemination of the output of African Scholars.
