From 2021 to 2026, with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, CEGA and Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa (NIERA) led the Collaboration for Inclusive Development Research (CIDR). CIDR conducted surveys and qualitative research to assess the barriers and opportunities for African scholars’ leadership in global development economics.  Our findings are available in this report, “Barriers, Bridges, Breakthroughs: Elevating African Scholars in International Development Research,” and in this working paper, which we will use to advocate for our recommendations to be adopted by universities, governments, and NGOs. 

Motivation

While the evidence base on the impacts of global poverty and economic development interventions in Africa is growing rapidly, the share of published research produced by scholars from African countries remains disproportionately low–African scholars accounted for less than 1% of publications in economics journals from 1980 to 2015 (Aigner, Greenspon & Rodrik, 2025). An immediate concern is that the key issues facing African societies may get shortchanged when African voices and perspectives are not prominent in academic and research debates.

Thankfully, investments in resources, training and career development opportunities for African scholars have expanded significantly in recent years, which (at least anecdotally) have helped increase African authorship in peer-reviewed journals and drive better policy outcomes on the continent. Yet, at the time of writing this report, several unanswered questions remained, including:

• What is the state, and potential benefits, of “inclusion” for African Scholars in impact evaluation (IE) research?
• What progress has been made to date, and what barriers remain?
• Which actors are best positioned to address the remaining gap, and in what ways?
• What happens when research does not include all perspectives, or when its goals are not fully aligned with local priorities?

The goal of CIDR is to shed new light on the challenges of inclusion for African scholars in international development research. 

Methodology

Together, the CIDR team designed and implemented a comprehensive survey—the first of its kind, to our knowledge—targeting over 500 stakeholders in the field of international development economics, including African and U.S. scholars, university administrators, journal editors, faculty, and professionals in nonprofits/NGOs. This CIDR survey was also accompanied by a survey of more than 800 African undergraduate and master’s students in development fields at ten African universities;  an anonymous survey of 51 faculty members employed by African universities; 40 qualitative interviews; and five focus-group discussions. Together, these mixed method tools helped uncover specific barriers to inclusion that African scholars still face at four key stages in the research to policy pipeline: 1) higher education, 2) training and mentorship, 3) research production, and 4) policy impact and evidence use. This abridged report and the full-length report were vetted by external experts in the field of international development. The CIDR survey was primarily disseminated through CEGA and NIERA’s networks, which are generally composed of scholars who have had access to greater opportunities (academic and professional) compared to the broader population of African researchers. As such, the data likely reflects a positively selected group, and the disparities reported here would likely be even more pronounced in a more representative sample. 

Overview of Findings

Through this research process, CIDR consistently identified high motivation among African scholars, the value of collaboration and networking, and the promise of capacity strengthening initiatives. CIDR also uncovered two major constraints for African scholars: resources and institutional environments.

Access to resources affects African scholars at every stage of the pipeline, from deciding to pursue a PhD, to obtaining research funding, to accessing journal articles, to participating in training programs. For many aspiring African scholars, the cost of pursuing a PhD is prohibitive: 90% of master’s students cited scholarships and program costs as the most important factor in deciding whether to continue to the doctoral level, and nearly half (47%) said application fees alone influenced their decision to apply. Once in academia, publication remains constrained by cost: 64% of African scholars ranked submission fees as the most critical factor in where to publish, and 68% reported being unable to access the literature due to paywalls. Training providers echoed these resource concerns, consistently naming funding as the single most significant barrier to program effectiveness — even as programs themselves have expanded and continue to deliver real benefits, with over 80% of scholars reporting increased confidence after participation.

These financial barriers are compounded by structural limitations within higher education institutions themselves. Across much of Sub-Saharan Africa, faculty face heavy teaching loads, low pay, and weak incentives for quality research output — pressures that push them toward outside consulting work, reduce time for mentorship, and limit meaningful engagement with policymakers, even as 67% of policymakers reported primarily consuming locally produced evidence. The downstream effects are significant: only 49% of students were satisfied with the mentorship they received, and those who do persist must navigate scarce course offerings in rigorous research methods, busy supervisors, and weak pathways into academic careers. These gaps narrow the pipeline long before a scholar ever submits to a journal, and they show up clearly at the publication stage, where editors cited insufficient methodological rigor as the leading reason for rejecting submissions from African scholars (63%). 

Taken together, these findings illustrate a research system rich with talent and demand for evidence on Africa’s most pressing socioeconomic challenges, yet hampered by structural inequities that no single actor can resolve alone. This report aims to bridge the gap between macro-level diagnoses and micro-level realities, and to translate that understanding into action. At the end of this report, we offer targeted recommendations to funders, training and mentorship providers, journals, and governments on how to address these constraints in coordinated, sustainable ways—in service of a research ecosystem where African scholars are equipped, supported, and recognized as the architects of policy-relevant knowledge on their own continent.

Tell us how you are using our findings and recommendations – we may feature you in a future blog post or spotlight you during a community of practice meeting!

Additional CIDR Activities

CIDR Opportunity Hub

The CIDR Opportunity Hub (CO-Hub) is a an open-access platform for African scholars that showcases available trainings, mentorship, networking, and funding opportunities. While training and career development opportunities for African scholars have expanded significantly in recent years, the CO-Hub was created to better centralize existing opportunities and increase accessibility for African scholars to engage with ongoing global inclusion efforts. The CO-Hub developers hosted a 45-minute webinar that demonstrated how to use the resource (slides are here the recording is here).

Maintained and continually updated on a monthly basis by CIDR and the Graduate Applications International Network (GAIN), the CO-Hub is adaptable to many user’s needs. The more than 100 opportunities can be sorted by a variety of fields, including type, eligibility requirements, and application deadlines. Corresponding external links provide clear routes for more information about each opportunity. New opportunities can be submitted using this form: CO-Hub New Opportunity Submission Form.

CIDR Innovation Fund

In July 2025, CIDR invited applications for 2-3 small projects (up to USD $10,000 each) designed to enhance the leadership of African scholars in development economics research. Projects had to align with CIDR’s findings and recommendations to overcome persistent barriers to inclusion that African scholars face at different stages in the research pipeline.

CEGA and NIERA awarded $30,000 to three projects that will leverage CIDR findings to inform the following programs: 

• Christina Fille & Annet Adong (CEGA Fellows) will lead a workshop for Heads of Economics Departments from leading East African universities, focusing on strengthening student supervision and mentorship. The workshop will create a network of Department Heads, enabling long-term collaboration and broad impact on student mentorship across institutions.
• Fridah Kanana & Caroline Thoruwa will develop a five-day Impact Evaluation Workshop at Kenyatta University, Kenya, providing training on gender-responsive research, data analysis, publication, stakeholder engagement, and practical mentorship for early-career researchers.
• Wilson Wasike will pair early-career development researchers with African think tanks to enhance research quality, policy impact, and research-to-policy translation across East Africa.

Convenings
CIDR organized several convenings from 2022-2025, including an initial community of practice meeting that brought together a dedicated group of stakeholders over Zoom to create linkages; introduced CIDR; refined our research methods and agenda; and invited input related to four key focus areas (Higher Education, Training and Mentorship, Research Production, and Policy Impact/Evidence Use). The group now meets on a quarterly basis as the “Inclusive Development Research Working Group” to establish new ways to collaborate and strategize best practices for supporting a more inclusive evidence ecosystem.

Dissemination

Attend our webinar next month on July 7th at 8:30 am PST to hear esteemed panelists share their reactions and responses to CIDR’s findings.

If you have thoughts, feedback, or questions about the initiative (or would like to tell us about your related work in the space) we would like to hear from you: here.

Further discussion of these data is presented in this additional paper: Adong, A., & Posner, D. N. (2025). Broken Pipeline: Higher Education and the Production of African Development Researchers.