Professional researchers and economists will benefit from a range of graduate study opportunities jointly offered by the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR-Rwanda) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC).

William Lyakurwa, the Executive Director of AERC, told a conference, yesterday, that his organisation plans to increase Africa’s capacity to carry out indegenous studies through empowering local researchers.

"The consortium’s main role is to build capacity in Sub-Sahara Africa for economic policy research and to collaborate with economic institutions that have a stake in economic research and training,” he said.

"In our reports, we observed that Rwanda did not benefit from our programmes as other countries in the past. This time applicants from Rwanda will be given priority so that they can have a higher chance of participating in the masters training programmes,” Lyakurwa said.

He added that, in the next five years, AERC will increase resources to build policy research and graduate training by facilitating universities to take full responsibility for the master’s programmes.

François Kanimba, the Governor of National Bank of Rwanda (BNR), commended the efforts of IPAR and AERC, saying that the programmes will create a pool of locally qualified experts with capacity to carry out independent and sustainable research on African challenges.

"Rwanda recognizes the importance of policy oriented research and the need to increase the local capacity,” Kanimba said.

"Therefore, more needs  be done to train Rwandan economists at masters and PHD levels. This will not only increase their academic level, but also broaden their experience in economic policy oriented research.”

Ends