Learning Days 12: West Africa Regional Hub Workshop

Organized by Centre de Recherche et d’Action pour la Paix (CERAP), home of the West Africa Regional Hub of Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP)

June 26-30, 2023

Abidjan-Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire

The Centre de Recherche et d’Action pour la Paix (CERAP), home of the West Africa Regional Hub of Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) will hold a Learning Days workshop in Côte d’Ivoire in June 2023. This workshop is a 5-day intensive aimed at introducing and developing familiarity with causal inference in impact evaluations for scholars and program evaluators in the Global South. It will take place from June 26-30, 2023. The workshop will take place at CERAP’s Cocody campus in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

The workshop is intended for both Francophone and Anglophone Africa-based researchers and evaluation professionals working in academic, non-governmental, and governmental organizations who carry out analyses related to governance and development.  

We strongly encourage applications from researchers with training in the social sciences (political science, public administration, development studies, conflict studies, economics, and other related disciplines) who primarily use qualitative methods but have some familiarity with quantitative research. Preference will be given to qualified applicants with degrees from African institutions and those who currently work on (or are planning to work on) studies related to polarization, conflict, and democracy in Africa. 

Key topics include research design, causal inference, randomization, estimation, and hypothesis testing. The week will include sessions for individual feedback on participants’ research designs and statistical exercises. Accepted applicants will be expected to complete a preparatory exercise before arriving for the clinic.

All lectures will be held in English, with periodic translations into French. Materials will be available in both French and English, and several instructors speak French.  

In order to be eligible for the workshop, applicants must:

• Be currently based at a university, government, or civil society organization in Africa
• Be able to follow a course in English
• Have basic knowledge of statistics
• Have training in the social sciences, with at least some portion of their higher education from an African institution
• We are not considering applications from scholars who have training exclusively from non-African institutions. If you are not eligible for this reason, but would still like to connect with the EGAP West Africa Hub at CERAP, please contact us at cerap.egap-berkeley@cerap-inades.org.

CERAP and EGAP will cover the financial costs of transportation to and from the workshop location, accommodations (for attendees from outside Abidjan), lunch/snacks at the workshop, and a celebratory dinner, along with a stipend for other meal expenses. If selected to attend the workshop, participants must arrive before the morning of June 26 and be in attendance each day through the evening of June 30.

Participants must sign a liability waiver and comply with the event’s COVID-19 vaccination policy (scroll down to see below). If you are not already vaccinated, depending on which vaccines are available in your area, you may need to begin your vaccination series in April 2023 in order to attend the workshop.

Applications are currently open. To apply, please visit this page and complete the form found there, including uploading your CV. Please note that applications will not be considered complete without an attached CV. Applications are due by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday, March 29, 2023.

About CERAP

The Centre of Research and Action for Peace (CERAP) is a research center and higher education institution in Côte d’Ivoire. It was established in 1962. CERAP’s mission is to contribute to the building of a world of justice and peace through education and community outreach. It offers both undergraduate and graduate academic programs. CERAP has implemented projects on reconciliation and violence mitigation since the Ivorian political crisis. CERAP is also home to a publishing house, Editions du CERAP, which contributes to the promotion of African writers. 

About EGAP

Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) is a research, evaluation, and learning network with worldwide reach that promotes rigorous knowledge accumulation, innovation, and evidence-based policy in various governance domains, including accountability, political participation, mitigation of societal conflict, and reducing inequality. It does so by fostering academic-practitioner collaborations, developing tools and methods for analytical rigor, and training academics and practitioners alike, with an intensive focus in the Global South.

About the EGAP West Africa Regional Hub at CERAP

The EGAP West Africa Regional Hub at CERAP was established to support regionally-based researchers and practitioners in connecting with a global learning community. West Africa-based scholars identify Hub priorities, set the research agenda, share knowledge and foster collaboration with scholars around the world. One of these priorities is to strengthen local researchers’ ability to conduct rigorous quantitative impact evaluations.

Vaccination Requirement

In order to enhance safety for all attendees and to increase equity by creating an environment that enables more individuals to participate, EGAP will require all meeting attendees (including EGAP members, workshop participants, and EGAP/Regional Hub staff planning to attend the full event) to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. A person is considered “fully” vaccinated when two weeks have passed since they completed a COVID-19 Vaccine series (for example, 1 dose of the Janssen/J&J vaccine, or 2 doses within no more than 2 weeks of the Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca,Sinovac/CoronaVac, BIBP/Sinopharm, Comirnaty, Covaxin, AZD1222/Vaxzevria, Novavax/Nuvaxovid, Covovax/Covavax vaccine). This policy covers all EGAP events with (a) in-person participation for which (b) at least two event attendees will be traveling to the event site from a different country. In addition to the vaccination policy, all attendees must comply with the masking policy in place for each event.

Travel to EGAP meetings and workshops requires transit through large public facilities in areas with varying levels of COVID-19 prevalence and prevention measures. In addition, many countries require vaccination in order for international travelers to enter the country. EGAP meetings and workshops involve attendees being indoors together for extended periods of time, with attendees often speaking loudly. These are activities with elevated risk for transmission of COVID-19. Moreover, COVID exposure potentially means disruptions to work and family life, risks to vulnerable family members, and the financial burden of not being able to travel home until after a period of quarantine. The vaccination policy is aimed at reducing these risks in order to promote equity and encourage the participation of those for whom these health and financial risks are particularly burdensome, including those with a higher risk of complications from contracting COVID-19.

We understand that for some, access to vaccination or preference for vaccination may be complicated, particularly as EGAP and members of the network have devoted considerable effort and resources to studying questions of access and preferences regarding vaccination. Vaccination against COVID-19 is not guaranteed to prevent contracting the virus. Some may experience a couple days of side effects (usually a sore arm, tiredness, muscle pain, or nausea that subsides after a day or two). 

Nevertheless, multiple peer–reviewed studies also show that they are very effective in reducing risk of getting COVID, as well as the risk of becoming seriously ill, hospitalized, or dying due to COVID. COVID vaccines are also proven to be safe, with over 13 billion doses administered worldwide–including over 1 billion in Africa, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control. For more information from the World Health Organization, see here. EGAP leadership has decided upon this vaccination requirement after evaluating the balance of these considerations.

EGAP is a research network institutionally based at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. As a UC Berkeley-sponsored event, participation is voluntary and signature of the UC general waiver will be required:

https://riskservices.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/uc_general_waiver.pdf