Local Voices, Real Impact: Highlights from 2025

In 2025, the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) deepened its impact on global development by pioneering new engagement models, strengthening partner capacity, and championing southern-led research on many of the most pressing issues. 

Across regions and programmes, PEP cemented its move from traditional research-led engagement to an approach that starts with policymakers’ needs, strengthens local leadership, and produced evidence for immediate use.

The voices shared below—drawn from a selection of the initiatives that PEP supported this year—reflect how this shift is already translating into real influence, stronger institutions, and growing demand for Southern-led expertise.

Starting with Policy Needs: A New Way of Engaging

One of the most distinctive changes 2025 was PEP’s consolidation of an ‘engagement-driven’ framework for evidence support. This innovative approach, exemplified by the Building sustainable and synergistic evidence-informed policymaking (EIP) ecosystems in East & West Africa initiative, starts with policymakers' immediate questions and needs to design the research projects. This ensures that the evidence produced is timely, relevant, and designed for practical uptake in complex policy environments.

Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the initiative provides intensive training to help research staff ‘think and work politically’, equipping them with the skills to navigate real-world policy processes. By bringing together research institutions, government actors, and other stakeholders into EIP ecosystems, evidence is continuously produced, shared and used throughout the policy process—not only at the end.  

Marjorie Alain, Director of Engagement and Impact, confirmed the exceptionally strong demand for this new model:

Despite the modest funding being offered and intensive engagement requirements, over 200 African research centres responded to our call for applications in February, reflecting strong interest in this new model for policy-driven research. By the end of the year, the nine selected centres had formalised collaborative agreements with government institutions to deliver real-time evidence support for priority policy processes.

At the country level, this model has strengthened relationships between research institutions and government. In Senegal, it has helped a young think tank build credibility and influence. Seydina Ousmane Seye, Project Team Leader, Senegal shared:

In responding directly to the demands of the Ministries of Hydraulic and Sanitation, and of Hygiene and Public Health, we co-constructed agreements and built genuine personal relationships with the political actors involved. This has strengthened PACE's reputation and recognition as a “go-to institution” within the government.

When senior technicians asked us to explain the difference between data and evidence, we drew on PEP training to support informed dialogue, demonstrate the value of citizen data, and strengthen our role in supporting policy processes. We are now being formally invited to key ministry events to provide evidence and support reforms. PEP enabled us to make a strong start as a young think tank in Senegal.

Cultivating Expertise: Investing in People and Skills

Strong policy engagement depends on strong local capacity. At the heart of PEP's mission is a deep commitment to capacity development. In 2025, our flagship programs continued to empower a new generation of researchers and practitioners with the tools needed to drive evidence-informed change.

Developing Africa's Next Generation of Education Researchers

The Africa Fellows in Education Program (AFEP), hosted in partnership with the Global Education Analytics Institute, supports Africa-based researchers to produce high-quality education research and engage with policy debates, addressing the local capacity gap and enhancing education decision-making. 

Now in its third year, the program achieved significant successes in 2025, demonstrating its growing impact on the continent’s research and policy landscape. As Ramaele Moshoeshoe, Director of AFEP, explained:

This year marked a major milestone for AFEP: the first cohort completed the Fellowship, with one Fellow earning a ‘revise and resubmit’ from a leading field journal. The second cohort advanced their research and policy engagement through AEFP conference presentations and a policy communication masterclass. We also welcomed 10 third-cohort Fellows, expanding AFEP to 15 African countries and strengthening skills through advanced workshops on the economics of education and impact evaluation. Across cohorts, AFEP is building a vibrant community of African education researchers generating rigorous evidence and shaping education policy across the continent.

For fellows, mentoring and practical support were central to turning research into influence. A second-cohort Fellow, Nneka Esther Osadolo said:

A key highlight of my AFEP experience in 2025 was developing and presenting my work-in-progress with strong mentoring support. After struggling to access data for my initial idea, the programme director connected me with an NGO, enabling me to reshape my project, access rich programme data, and – with additional mentorship – prepare solid presentations for the PEP annual conference and other seminars.

AFEP also helped researchers bring evidence into national policy discourse. Heleen Hofmeyr, a first-cohort Fellow said:

In 2025 I hosted my first workshop on socio-emotional skills in education, sharing findings with practitioners and policymakers and gathering input on next steps. This led to an invitation to present at a national teachers’ forum within South Africa’s Department of Basic Education, where teachers welcomed the attention to the “softer side” of learning in local research.

Strengthening Evaluation and Learning Practice

Through the Learning and Knowledge Management Project (LKMP), funded by Global Affairs Canada, multiple development practitioners strengthened their skills and the project made meaningful strides in advancing evidence-informed development. The project supports Canadian small and medium organizations (SMOs) and their local partners to better evaluate and enhance their interventions' impact on living conditions, gender equality, and the empowerment of women and girls.

According to Ana Badillo, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist and LKMP Project Manager, the key achievements for 2025 included:

• The successful completion of three impact evaluations, with findings already informing the design of new initiatives.
• The launch and completion of the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Mentorship Program—the first of its kind within PEP.

She elaborated on the tangible outcomes of the mentorship program:

Through this program, 10 development practitioners from six countries deepened their understanding of MEL concepts and engaged with real-world challenges. They are now applying these approaches in their work—enhancing evaluation readiness, improving learning systems, and driving adaptive, evidence-based practices.

Applying Evidence to Global Challenges

With stronger local capacity in place, PEP-supported research continued to inform policy on some of today’s most urgent challenges.

Youth Employment in Africa

PEP partnered with the Mastercard Foundation for a three-year, ten-country initiative looking at “What Works for Youth Employment in Africa”. To comprehensively understand how Youth Employment Programmes (YEPs) operate in practice, the project teams conducted over 500 in-depth interviews and engaged more than 1,500 focus group participants, including youth, youth leaders, policymakers (including parliamentarians), civil society representatives, academics, media actors, and international organisations. PEP made the analysis and findings from this initiative accessible through two major new resources: the book Youth Employment Programmes in Africa and an open-access research repository.

Michael Murigi, Project Coordinator, and Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator said:

This program has generated vital evidence on what works for youth employment across 10 sub-Saharan African countries. I encourage all stakeholders committed to creating dignified, fulfilling work opportunities for young people in Africa to consult the repository of findings and use it to strengthen youth employment policies and projects. 

Sustainable Agriculture and Green Transitions

PEP also advanced research on climate resilience and sustainable agriculture, linking local action with global policy debates. The Leveraging renewable energy MSMEs for sustainable agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia initiative aims to generate robust evidence to inform policy reforms that foster resilience, adaptation to climate change, and inclusivity in the agricultural sector, particularly for women and youth in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda, and Vietnam. 

In 2025, it generated promising results and is on track to make an impact on national policies. Jorge Davalos, Director of Research, said:

Teams have succeeded in implementing meaningful interventions, with participation rates above our initial expectations. The insights we got from midline consultations make us optimistic about the forthcoming endline surveys and their results. 

Trung Xuan Hoang, Project Team Leader, Vietnam shared an important example of how the team’s stakeholder engagement is positioning the work for policy update:

One highlight of our PEP work in 2025 was the strong community engagement, with participation rates exceeding expectations. Importantly, the National Agricultural Extension Center has expressed readiness to use the project’s findings to inform policy and practice, which strengthens the pathway from evidence to impact. 

At the global level, PEP contributed Southern perspectives to debates on sustainability as a consortium member for the Sustainability Performances, Evidence, and Scenarios (SPES) project, funded by the European Union under the ‘Horizon Europe Programme’. This work examines how climate policies affect different groups within countries, reconciling productivity, equality, sustainability, and participation to drive the transition towards sustainable human development. Jorge Davalos, Director of Research, said:

Among our many contributions to this joint project is an analysis of green transition policies such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). We showed that although their overall economic effects in a Global South country are negligible, they can place a heavier burden on the most vulnerable populations.

Looking Ahead

Across programmes and regions, the experiences shared here point to a consistent message: evidence has the greatest impact when it is locally led, shaped by policy needs, and supported by long-term investment in people. In 2025, PEP helped turn local knowledge into practical evidence, supported people to grow into trusted policy partners, and ensured Southern perspectives shaped national and global debates.

As PEP looks ahead—to 2026 and beyond—the organisation will continue to invest in people and institutions closest to the challenges. With local leadership and evidence designed for use at its core, PEP supports policies that are grounded in lived realities and can deliver equitable and sustainable outcomes.