Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) In Sub-Saharan Africa - First Annual Regional Meeting

The First Annual Regional Meeting (ARM) will be held in Kigali (Rwanda) from the 22^nd to 26^th August 2016. It is being co-organized by the East African Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO), Rwanda’s National Commission of Science and Technology (NCST) and the SGCI under the theme: “Science, technology and innovation for socio-economic development, regional integration and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”. The specific objectives are as follows:

• To support the East African Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO) in the formulation of its Strategic Plan for 2017-2021;
• To present the draft SGCI Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Framework to participating Science Granting Councils and Collaborating Technical Agencies (CTAs);
• To discuss the SGCI Implementation Plan in order to identify potential areas of cooperation among the CTAs;
• To conduct a 2-day training course for the SGCs on the “Fundamentals of Research Management: The Role of the Research Manager in a SGC Environment”;
• To strengthen capacity of the host Science Granting Council (Rwanda’s National Commission of Science and Technology) to convene regional multi-stakeholder STI policy dialogues and debates; and
• To introduce the SGCI Initiative to government, private sector, scientific and other key stakeholders in Rwanda and the Eastern Africa region.

Expected outputs of the regional meeting

• Consensus is reached among national level stakeholders on regional STI policy priorities and a guiding framework for the judicious application of STI to accelerate the socio – economic development of the East African Community (EAC) region;
• Inputs are received from the SGCs and CTAs on the draft Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Framework
• The CTAs have a clear understanding of their role in collecting data that feeds into the MEL Framework;
• The draft SGCI Implementation Plan is further refined based on discussions among CTAs;
• Participating SGCs are trained by SARIMA on the Fundamentals of Research Management.

Structure of the regional meeting

The first 2 days of the meeting (22^nd and 23^rd August) will be devoted to EASTECO specific agenda (see the concept note of EASTECO 1st Regional Stakeholder Meeting). Day 3 (24^th August) will be devoted to the SGCI activities (presentation of the SGCI’s MEL Framework by the MEL consultant and presentations of the CTA projects). The last 2 days (25^th and 26^th August) will be dedicated to assessing the capacity strengthening needs/ interests of participating SGCs by the Southern Africa Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) focusing on theme 1 (research management).

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• Concept Note
• SGCI - First Annual Regional Meeting Programme