23 African countries including Rwanda are to benefit from a 90 million-dollar grant to assist in national policy development.

The grant will be provided to independent policy think tanks in the selected countries to encourage initiating and influencing of public policies. In Rwanda, Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) was selected to benefit from the grant.

Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed to the fund.

The agencies made the announcement at a joint press conference during the 44th yearly general meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Dakar, Senegal.

The funds are meant to be given to selected African Think Tanks to support locally created development policies and drive positive change for millions of people.

"We recently received the information that we have been selected and we shall use the money to strengthen our institute capacity and enhance research,” said Desire Murokozi, the assistant executive director of IPAR.

According to a release, 24 think tanks were selected from 11 East and West African countries; including Rwanda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda to benefit from the fund.

"We believe good national development policy decisions are best made when informed by robust research and analysis grounded in local realities,” said Mark Suzman, director of policy and advocacy for the Global Development Programme at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The money is to help the African think-tanks to expand their research scopes.

The Think Tank Initiative is envisioned as a long-term investment over at least 10 years. IPAR is a non-profit, non-governmental research institute with a responsibility of conducting analysis and research in the public policy domain.

Its mandate is to support the formulation of sound and informed public policies through objective analysis and research.

IPAR carries out policy analysis and research in strategic areas of the Rwandan political economic spheres, relevant to the development goals of the country.

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