Debt & Development Academy (DaDA)

Brief about DaDA,

Brief on Debt & Development Academy (DaDA)

AFRODAD and partners are excited to announce the inauguration of the Debt and Development Academy (DaDA), happening on the 2-4 October 2023 in Arusha, Tanzania. This year’s co-host is the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU). DaDA conveners include:

The Nawi-Afrifem Macroeconomics Collective– Pan-African

Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA)– Pan African

Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations (SEATINI) – Uganda

Centre for Trade Policy Development (CTPD) – Zambia

Okoa Uchumi Coalition (OUC)– Kenya

Pan-African Lawyers Union (PALU)– Pan-African and DaDA I Co-Hosts in Tanzania

Hon Tshabalala and Hon Chidakwa – Members of Parliament

Stop the Bleeding (STB) – Pan Africa

Society for International Development (SID)– Global

Background

Since 2015, the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) in collaboration with partners, has been providing capacity building through an initiative known as Summer School. Various stakeholders including policy makers, civil society actors, faith leaders, individuals, the academia and the media have benefitted from the initiative. Until end of 2021, the Summer School was one of the 2 organisation’s flagship events, the second being the Regional Dialogue on Illicit Financial Flows.

Summer School participants were drawn from various countries, touching Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa. The very first Summer School took place in Harare, Zimbabwe and subsequent ones were held in Pretoria- South Africa (2016), Windhoek- Namibia (2017), Mangochi- Malawi (2018), Pretoria- South Africa (2019), Kariba- Zimbabwe (2020) and the last one was held in Lusaka in 2021.

From Summer School to the Debt and Development Academy

Below are Themes that the Summer School Focused on over 7 Years:

Theme in 2015: A focus on the extractive sector in Africa.
Theme in 2016: Natural resources revenue management and Illicit financial flows.
Theme in 2017: Strengthening natural resource governance in southern Africa.
Theme in 2018: Raising the voice against illicit financial flows, corruption and inequality.
Theme in 2019: Illicit financial flows and Domestic Resource Management in the era of digital economies in Africa: Opportunities and challenges.
Theme in 2020: Leveraging on the extractive sector for improved Domestic Resource Mobilisation in Africa.
Theme in 2021: Building capacity toward an African common position on issues of development financing in Africa.

Upon evaluation of the Summer School’s themes, it became apparent that though the initiative was good, it did not centre on AFRODAD’s mission of contributing to Africa’s inclusive economic growth and sustainable development through influencing policy change on debt management and development finance anchored on rights based approaches. It is in this regard that AFRODAD has upgraded the Summer School to the Debt and Development academy (DaDA).

The first DaDA convener’s Meeting was held on 28^th and 29^th November 2022 in Kenya. Sessions involved brainstorming exercises among participants to ensure that DaDA will be relevant, effective and will not replicate already existing training and academies offered by AFRODAD’s Partners. The meeting involved presentations and group exercises to reflect through existing content and possible modules that can be included in the DaDA. The second preparatory meeting is scheduled for 21 March 2023 while the official flagship launch will take place during the fourth quarter of 2023.

The academy’s approach, even from its conceptualisation, is guided by AFRODAD’s values of panafricanism and solidarity inspired by our common struggles as Africans, that our continent continues to be faced with, and which can only be overcome by collective action.

DaDA is poised to offer modular training to CSO activists on a cross-section of issues that touch on debt and development Financing Agenda. It seeks to centralise the debt discourse, linking it to domestic resource mobilisation, illicit financial flows, macroeconomics, gender equality, climate change, natural resource governance, official development assistance, and foreign direct investments, etc. Indeed, the overall objective will be to build capacity towards a common position on issues of development financing in Africa.

AFRODAD has committed in its Strategic Plan 2021-2025, to be hosting 3 annual flagship events. Two capacity building flagships: the AFRODAD Media Initiative (AFROMEDI) and the Debt and Development Academy (DaDA); and one annual flagship conference titled the African Conference on Debt and Development (AfCoDD).