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Overview of the West Africa Insight Project

The Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD is implementing a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to research and publish a newsletter monthly. The newsletter will be called 'West Africa Insight'. It will be presented to the public in online form an a dedicated website (which you are now viewing) as well as in 'hard' (printed) format to be circulated among relevant stakeholders including researchers in universities, public officials in government, political activists, civil society organizations across the region as well as umbrella groups like WACSOF, business executives, and the individuals/groups interested in the scope and limits of political change in West Africa.

West Africa Insight will be published for ten months, January to September 2010 and each edition is made available on the last week of each month.

Thematic Areas

The thematic issues to be scanned each month are: peace and security; democratic governance; women's rights; the MDGs and resource governance. Each edition will be anchored on one of these themes. For example, the first edition will scan 'Democratic Reversals' in West Africa; this falls under the democratic governance theme.

Objectives

1. To gather in a systemic way an extensive range of data about emerging trends in West African social, ecological, technological, economic, and political milieu.
2. To analyze the collected data in the 'West Africa Insight' Newsletter, in a way that will enable our readers in general, and policy makers in particular to develop the capabilities necessary for dealing better with emerging issues and trends in the West African region.
3. In the process, to enhance and expand knowledge flows between professional communities in West African countries.
4. To widely circulate electronic and hard copies of the Democracy and Development Newsletter.

Expected Outcomes

• Increase stakeholders' awareness of specific trends within the region.
• Draw the attention of the readers to similarities and differences among the countries in the region.
• Present and analyse trend from a regional perspective without losing sight of country-specific issues.
• An Increase in CDD visibility in the media and among stakeholders. This will further entrench CDD as a regional think-tank capable of monitoring developments relating to democracy and development across the region.
• Build the capacity of CDD programme staff to research and monitor specific trends in the region through collaboration with seasoned researchers on the Editorial Team.

Key Project Activities

I. Methodology and Capacity Building Meeting (January 2010)

This meeting will bring together members of Editorial Board and the CDD research team. The objective will be to develop the instruments, compile sources, methodology, reporting templates and timelines and format of the publication. The meeting will also be used to expose Researchers to the procedure for horizon scanning the research methodology.

II. Regular Monitoring (December 2009 - September 2010)

The Researchers will be responsible for reviewing relevant information from the following secondary sources: books, newspapers, television, radio, magazines, academic journals, and reports of events organized by key government institutions and civil society organisations in the region. Special emphasis will be placed in sourcing for primary research sources whose conclusions will be brought to the wider public.

III. Monthly Newsletter (January - September 2010)

The 'West Africa Insight' Newsletter will be published once each month. However, a 'Special Edition' will be published along with the February monthly edition.

Project Team