After an eventful 2024, we asked PEP's Chair of the Board, Prof. Carol Newman, and Executive Director, Prof. Jane Mariara, to share their reflections on PEP's notable achievements over the past year and their vision for the organization’s progress and impact in 2025 and beyond.
I am impressed by the breadth of research activities PEP has undertaken over the last year and its steadfast commitment to strengthening the voice of local researchers in international development. PEP is at the forefront of emerging, critical research themes such as how artificial intelligence is shaping global labor markets and ways to fund the green energy transition in developing nations. In an asymmetrical power dynamic setting between the Global North and the South, I am confident that PEP’s thought leadership in these areas will contribute to Southern countries taking the lead in defining their research agendas in line with contextual realities.
Other important issues PEP focused on this year include its continued work on empowering women economically, be it through effective macroeconomic policies or specific interventions such as enabling a smoother transition to the labor market through essential soft skills training. Local researchers also looked at how global shocks such as the impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is impacting women specifically, with a focus on African countries. The youth defines the future of any nation. I believe that PEP’s ongoing research reviewing policies to create decent and meaningful work for youth in African countries to inform effective action will be critical in enabling the continent to realize its full potential.
A personal highlight of the year for me was meeting old and new colleagues at the first physical PEP annual policy conference held in Nairobi this year – four years since the pandemic. There is something to be said about physical interaction and I was delighted to meet researchers, staff, and management from across countries and continents, underscoring what makes PEP truly inclusive and unique in line with its mission.
I hope PEP continues to build on these successes in the coming year and advance the cause of promoting local research leadership at a time when the world is going through unprecedented changes in all spheres.
I am privileged to continue to serve as the Board chair and work with the organization’s wonderful leadership.
I also welcome the new cohort of Research Fellows who have joined PEP this year, including from Asia, an area that has been a focus for expansion.
On behalf of the PEP Board of Directors, I thank PEP’s funders, partners, management, researchers and staff for their continued dedication and commitment to PEP’s goals and in advocating rightful representation of the Global South, amplifying its voice and ensuring that its needs are addressed in a meaningful and impactful way.
Prof. Carol Newman
Chair, PEP Board of Directors
I am delighted to share what the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) accomplished in 2024. In line with our commitment to promoting local research leadership in the Global South, we completed several major research programs this year, focusing on various subjects.
These included facilitating women’s economic empowerment; answering the critical question of financing green energy transition in the Global South; understanding the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on African economies, especially women; creating meaningful employment for youth in Africa; and building capacity to conduct high quality impact evaluations.
We also explored two new areas of research in the year. First, PEP aimed to build its thought leadership in the emerging area of how artificial intelligence is affecting jobs globally with a focus on developing nations, which was one of the themes of our annual policy conference– organized in June 2024 physically in Nairobi for the first time since the pandemic. The conference also featured a dialogue from a research program reviewing policies to create dignified and fulfilling work for young men and women across the African continent, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. Second, local PEP researchers in Pakistan and South Africa, supported by the Center for Global Development, explored the crucial role of local and foreign investment, including that by Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), in particular, in financing green energy transition in the Global South.
PEP also continued to focus its research on empowering women in Southern countries with support from funders like the Hewlett Foundation and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). A recently concluded program explored macroeconomic policies to promote gender equality in Africa, while another studied how soft skills training in Kenya could boost women’s employment in the formal economy. As part of the ongoing research on how the Russia-Ukraine war impacted African economies, researchers analyzed how the war affected women in the labor market. Further, with the Hewlett Foundation’s support, local researchers concluded two research programs on strengthening local capacity to conduct high-quality impact evaluations in five African countries.
To build the capacity of young researchers, PEP continued to offer its online training in development economics in partnership with the University of Florence and offered a new course in leveraging monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) tools to LKMP researchers. Importantly, it developed and launched a self-paced, interactive, bilingual online course to strengthen researchers' capacity to integrate gender equality and inclusion (GEI) principles in their research, supported by IDRC. PEP also supported multiple scholarships in 2024, including the Africa Fellows in Education Program (AFEP), which admitted 10 new fellows; a fellowship with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), and the Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces (STARS) Fellows Program in collaboration with Cornell University.
As part of its ongoing programs, local PEP researchers are exploring the challenges in implementing the uptake of renewable energy by rural micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) for modernizing agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, supported by IDRC. Local researchers are also building the capacity of Canadian Small Organizations (SMOs) and their country-level partners in conducting effective monitoring and evaluation toinform decision-making, supported by Global Affairs Canada. PEP researchers are analyzing the challenge of access to equitable health care in Ethiopia, supported by the Fund for Innovation in Development, and will complete the program on review of policies creating decent employment for youth in 10 African countries in early 2025.
PEP continues to work with existing partners and also to build collaboration for capacity building in research and policy engagement in the Global South. Further, PEP welcomed its cohort of six new Research Fellows from the Global South this year and continued to participate in multiple international fora to strengthen the voice of Southern researchers in development debates. In particular, PEP increased its efforts at making critical research accessible to its global audience through a new PEP Blog and the Executive Director’s newsletter – Southern Lens on Development.
As another productive year comes to a close, I take the opportunity to thank our donors, partners, the Board, mentors, researchers, staff and management for their continued support and belief, and wish everyone a wonderful 2025.
Prof. Jane Mariara
Executive Director
PEP’s Highlights from 2024:
New research initiatives get underway:
- Project on inclusive and sustainable procurement cooking models to support home-grown school feeding in Ethiopia, supported by IDRC.
- Support of in-country research centers and their policy counterparts in East and West Africa in Evidence Informed Policy Making (EIPM), supported by the Hewlett Foundation.
- Support of expanding women’s economic empowerment in Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Tanzania, supported by the Hewlett Foundation.
- Support to strengthen organizational effectiveness by the Hewlett Foundation.
Promoting Southern Voices in Global Debates:
- UNICEF and UNDP Global Impact Evaluation Forum 2024 at the United Nations
- African Economic Conference (AEC 2024)
- SDGs for All: Africa Launch at the sidelines of UNGA79
- The Science Summit of UNGA79
- Second Global Evidence Summit
- Research Committee (RC19) Conference
- Launch of the 2023-2024 Human Development Report
- Launch of Earth4All Initiative-Kenya Report
- 6th Annual conference of the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics
PEP and CGD co-hosted a conference on MDB Reform and African priorities
