The launch of the Pan-African Network for Economic Analysis of Policies (PANAP) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia the Pan-African Network for Economic Analysis of Policies (PANAP) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

by Tshepo Morokong, tshepom@elsenburg.com and Dr Emanuele Ferrari, Emanuele.FERRARI@ec.europa.eu

TThe Pan-African Network for Economic Analysis of Policies (PANAP) is a network for researchers, data producers and analysts from governmental bodies and other research institutions in various partner countries. These countries collaborate with the European Commission and the African Union Commission in developing research on agricultural economics and policy issues with the focus on Africa. The objective of the PANAP network is to strengthen the liaison between researchers/scientists and policymakers in Africa and to stimulate their cooperation on selected topics linked to policy priorities that reinforce the agricultural sector’s stability in Africa. The collaboration between the Joint Research Centre (JRC) team and seven pilot African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia), resulted in intensive sharing of knowledge on applied policy impact analysis in agricultural and food sectors. However, to continue collaboration with other African countries, most of the JRC’s efforts will now be channelled through PANAP.

The launch of PANAP took place during November 2019 in Ethiopia, and one official from the Western Cape Department of Agriculture attended this event. He said that empirically tested economic models based on reliable data are important to formulate scientifically based evidence, which would then inform sound agricultural economic and food security policies.

The State Minister of Agriculture in Ethiopia, Mr Sani Redi, explained that agriculture is the backbone of the economy and makes a significant contribution to poverty reduction relative to other sectors of the economy. He appreciated the strategic collaboration that his country has with the JRC team from the European Union Commission. He also said that the JRC assisted with the quantification of rural job creation and agricultural impact on the economy through analysis of the farms sector and future food systems. He emphasised that PANAP would serve as a good platform to increase international interaction and the continued analysis of economic policies.

Dr Godfrey Bahiigwa from the African Union Commission, Department for Rural Economy and Agriculture (DREA), indicated that PANAP is premised in the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) partnership, and it is an embodiment of the commitment by the EU to build economic policy modelling capacity among member states. This will enable member states to formulate reform policies based on scientific evidence. On the second and last day of the conference, the participants attended a workshop on the quantitative impact of agrifood policies at macro and farm household level economic models based on selected country case studies.

The PANAP initiative can be beneficial to South Africa and the Western Cape in terms of lesson exchange on the use of economic models to assess the impact of agriculture and food security policies. Furthermore, PANAP contributes to closing the statistics data gap that exists in the continent by ensuring the availability and accessibility of country-specific data at farm household and national level.

AP

For examples, follow this link or scan the QR code: datam.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ datam/area/PANAP