African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research: Partnerships and Capacity Building for Economic Development

世界上10个最不平等的国家中有7个位于非洲，而在未来30年里，非洲大陆的人口在世界人口中所占的比例必然会迅速上升。了解非洲的不平等动态是解决国际不平等难题的关键组成部分。非洲不平等研究卓越中心的建立直接解决了政策干预和民间社会行动对抗不平等浪潮所需的分析、经验和数据需求。该协会目前的合作大学分布在非洲西部、东部和南部。中心的启动研究方案旨在提高非洲不平等问题有关数据的质量和可得性。同样重要的是，关于国家和大陆不平等的本地知识生产的所有权将强调赋予非洲学者和研究机构的发言权和代理权。acir的目标是促进对每个国家背景下的不平等现象的深入、多维和跨学科理解，以及对如何克服不平等现象的大陆和全球理解。我们的方法包括建立前沿数据奖学金和解释政策分析的能力。目前正在对国家一级的不平等现象进行有条理的分析，这种分析也以非洲发展的政治经济的历史遗产为基础。ACEIR的研究人员将把每个国家内部与不平等有关的进程与可持续发展目标等国际衡量标准联系起来。最初的研究方案要求研究人员与国家统计局合作：-利用人口普查、调查和行政数据来描绘和绘制不平等和贫困；-利用小组数据分析贫穷和不平等的动态；利用一套税收和社会支出效益发生率分析所产生的证据，作为消除贫困和不平等战略对话的平台。中心的每个节点都是非洲研究型大学联盟（ARUA）的成员。ACEIR的中心设在开普敦大学（UCT），该大学也主持南部非洲的节点。西部和东部节点由加纳大学主办；和内罗毕大学。该中心和每个节点都由在当代非洲和更广泛的国际不平等社区中享有盛誉的研究人员领导。这笔赠款将有助于将中心与这些广泛的网络，包括它们本国的统计机构连接起来。总部位于UCT的dataffirst在数据管理和传播方面拥有20多年的经验，是非洲大陆唯一获得CoreTrustSeal认证的数据服务，是可信赖的存储库。在过去十年中，datfirst还在数据质量问题评估和数据协调方面发展了特定的能力。datafirfirst最初将在中心的三个节点的数据准备、协调和培训活动中发挥核心作用，并从更长远的角度向中心的其他合作伙伴提供支持，包括目前与科特迪瓦布阿克维尔大学的伙伴关系，以及正在探索的与埃塞俄比亚亚的斯亚贝巴大学和肯尼亚肯雅塔大学的伙伴关系。作为欧洲联盟资助的不平等问题研究设施的一部分，法国<s:1> <s:1>升迁与发展署（AFD）提供了一笔初始启动赠款，并为该中心的设立提供了支助，此外，该中心还得到了非洲研究所和各伙伴大学的奖励。

Seven of the world's 10 most unequal countries are located in Africa - this while the continent's population is bound to take a rapidly rising share of the world's population in the next 30 years. Understanding Africa's inequality dynamics is a key component of the international inequality puzzle.The establishment of the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (ACEIR) directly addresses the analytical, empirical and data needs that are required for policy interventions and civil society action the tide against inequality. ACEIR's current partner universities are located in western, eastern and southern Africa. The Centre's launch research programme is aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of relevant data on inequalities in Africa. Equally as important, the ownership of local knowledge production on national and continental inequalities will underline the voice and agency vested in African scholars and research institutions.ACEIR's goal is to contribute to deep, multidimensional and interdisciplinary understandings of inequality in each country context, and a continental and global understanding of how inequalities can be overcome. Our approach includes building capacity for frontier data scholarship and the interpretation of analyses for policy. Textured country-level analyses of inequality that are also anchored in historical legacies of the political economy of African development is in the process of being undertaken. ACEIR researchers will link processes related to inequality within each country to international measurements such as the Sustainable Development Goals. The initial research programme sees researchers working with the national statistical offices to:- Use census, survey and administrative data to profile and map inequality and poverty;- Analyse the dynamics of poverty and inequality by using panel data; and- Use the evidence generated by a set of tax and social expenditure benefit incidence analyses as a platform for dialogue on strategies to overcome poverty and inequality.Each of the Centre's nodes are members of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA). ACEIR has its hub at the University of Cape Town (UCT), which also hosts the southern African node. The western and eastern nodes are hosted by the University of Ghana, Legon; and the University of Nairobi, respectively. The hub and each node are led by researchers of stature and who are well-established in the contemporary African and broader international inequality communities. This grant will facilitate connecting the Centre into these broad networks, including their own countries' statistical agencies. DataFirst, based at UCT, has over twenty years' experience in the curation and dissemination of data and is the only data service on the African continent to have achieved the CoreTrustSeal certification as a trusted repository. Over the last decade DataFirst has also developed a specific competence in the assessment of data quality issues and in the harmonisation of data. DataFirst will play a central role in the Centre's data preparation, harmonisation and training activities across the three nodes initially, with a longer term view to extending support to the Centre's other partners, including the current partnership with the University of Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire, and partnerships in the process of being explored, with Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and also Kenyatta University, Kenya.The Centre's establishment is supported by an initial start-up grant from the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) as part of the Research Facility on Inequality funded by the European Union, as well as awards from ARUA and each partner university.