Since 2015, AFRODAD in collaboration with its partners, has been providing capacity building to a broad range of development stakeholder drawn from the African continent through an initiative named “Summer School”. The latter is a yearly AFRODAD flagship event that aims at keeping Africa’s development stakeholders abreast of topical issues in the fast-evolving area of development finance. This year’s Summer School is scheduled for 17th-19th under the theme “Building Capacity Towards a Common African Position on Issues of Development Financing in Africa”.
The Summer School theme aligns with expectations of the recently held Pan African Conference on Debt and Development and its main outcome document “The Harare Declaration” which emphasizes the need for Africa to emerge as a “rule maker not the rule taker” in its quest for development. The event also builds on the successes of the previous Summer Schools and other AFRODAD flagship events that have been equipping Africa’s development stakeholders with the right knowledge and skill sets required to defend Africa’s development interests and to challenge the global debt architecture, influence advocacy spaces and push for prudent debt management in Africa. This has contributed immensely to enriching and advancing AFRODAD’s advocacy work across the continent.
The two-day long event shall bring together stakeholders -parliamentarians, policy makers, civil society actors, faith leaders, individuals, the academia and the media – with the overall aim to further enhance their capacity on issues of development finance. This includes issues around transparent and accountable debt management, efficient mechanisms for the mobilization and of domestic resources, as well as use of resources provided through international public finance.
The focus of this year’s Summer School sets out to highlight that mobilising African people to speak in common terms regarding their development plight requires a profound understanding of current and evolving issues in the field of development finance and how they are intricately woven to provide African countries with opportunities that can enhance sustainable and inclusive development outcomes.
This Summer School will be the last to be known by this name as the event will transition into the Debt and Development Academy (DaDA).
