Our work
We learn and inspire
We learn about evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) and hope to inspire our members through various activities. For example, we facilitate the annual Africa Evidence Leadership Award (AELA) that honours African evidence champions’ leadership and excellence in EIDM. We also showcase EIDM innovations in Africa. In addition to that, we host the Africa Evidence Youth League (AEYL) which aims to nurture and amplify the young and emerging leaders’ voice in EIDM. We also map evidence ecosystem in Africa through GeoMaps and landscape reports. We capture the influence of AEN on the personal as well as professional lives of our members and colleagues through stories of change to understand the role of AEN in their journeys. We also facilitate an EIDM mentoring programme.
Africa Evidence Leadership Award
The Africa Evidence Leadership Award (AELA) was established in 2018. It works on a nomination basis and is awarded annually: 1. to increase awareness of EIDM in Africa, 2. to raise the status of evidence amongst decision-makers in Africa, 3. to showcase the status of Africa in EIDM discussions by recognising innovative work, and to 4. celebrate excellent contribution to the advancement of African EIDM. Click here to learn more.
EIDM Innovations
In Africa, innovation is flourishing in the support of EIDM. We highlight these innovations here. You can select any EIDM innovation to view a brief video, read a description, and access additional resources about that innovation. During your visit, we hope you will join us in celebrating African innovation in EIDM. Several EIDM Incubator hub sessions were held during Evidence 2023, giving participants the chance to engage with elements that influenced the intervention’s design and network with various organisations showcasing their innovative work. The objective was to exchange ideas and get input from the AEN community. Click here to learn more about these EIDM innovations.
Africa Evidence Youth League (AEYL)
The Africa Evidence Youth League (AEYL) is an initiative of the AEN which was launched at Evidence 2023 in Uganda. The AEYL brings together and promotes the growth of 45 emerging education evidence leaders from 15 African nations. Diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise are brought to the league by the AEYL leaders. Through the application of evidence, the AEYL members are all committed to promoting development and reform in Africa. It provides a platform for them to share ideas, build connections, and take part in mentoring, career- and institution-building activities. The AEYL is centred around burning issues that were identified by these emerging leaders. For more information about AEYL, click here.
Mapping Evidence Ecosystems in Africa
We commissioned a series of evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) landscape maps in different countries in Africa, that were produced as part of the bursary conditions for attendance at Evidence 2016 and 2018. The series currently comprises of 40 maps. Bursaries were provided as part of the UJ-BCURE programme, funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and 3ie.
Click here to learn more.
AEN Stories of Change
To capture the influence of AEN on the personal as well as professional lives of our members and colleagues, the AEN embarked on an exciting venture to speak with our members to understand the role of AEN in their journeys.
Read their stories in the Stories of Change category.
EIDM Mentoring Programme
The goal of the mentoring programme is to give AEYL members comprehensive and customised EIDM capacity-sharing opportunities. The purpose of the AEYL mentoring programme was to give AEYL members a way to improve their ability to advocate for the use of evidence in Africa’s educational system. The mentoring programme’s core consists of two kinds of mentoring relationships for aspiring leaders in education evidence. First, AEYL members had the option to choose to be mentees in one-on-one mentoring relationships with either EIDM or education leaders. Second, leaders could choose to participate in group or individual mentoring relationships with their peers, which are other AEYL members. Click here to learn more about the EIDM mentoring programme.
Only together can evidence-informed decision-making become a reality.
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