Economic Policy Enabling Environment (EPEE)

EEA’s Institutional Profile

The Ethiopian Economics Association (EEA) is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent research and membership organization, established under the Ethiopian law in 1992. Since its formation EEA has strived to: a) provide its members a platform of network, experiential learning, and access to current information; b) generate evidence-based analysis on an evolving social, economic and environment realities of Ethiopia so that policymakers, practitioners, business community, researchers, development partners and the general public are informed; c) contribute to frontier and emergent economic thinking relevant to the Ethiopian context and to advanced research methodologies, academic rigor, and development processes.

Vision: EEA aspires to become a premier professional association serving as a center of excellence regionally and internationally for providing unconstrained and evidence-based economic policy research and analysis.

Mission: To provide a platform for networking, information and learning; to inform and influence evidence-based policymaking; to offer prioritized training; and to contribute to the advancement of the discipline of economics.

Project Profile

• Project title:Economic Policy Enabling Environment
• Funding organization:Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
• Lead applicant/grantee:Ethiopia Economics Association (EEA)
• Research team: Mengistu Ketema, Degye Goshu, and Demirew Getachew

Project Objectives

The project has three broad and related but distinct research objectives.  It is intended to realize the following three main goals and primary outcomes:

1. Building the research capacity of Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute (EEPRI) of EEA to undertake standard research activities and to provide evidence-based professional and technical advisory services;
2. Enabling the GoE to design and implement evidence-based economic policies; and
3. Establishing strong and sustained partnership and networking with partners.

Expected Outcomes and Outputs

1. Research capacity building

EEA has undertaken various activities to realize the following five intermediate outcomes:

• Building the research capacity and creating conducive working environment which enables to contribute to preparation of the Ten-Year Development Plan (TYDP), GTP-III) by providing policy-relevant research results, policy briefs, participating in policy advisory services;
• Developing and implementing flexible research engagement modality for researchers;
• Renovation of the multipurpose building to creating conducive working environment and source of income;
• Updating the EEA economic database to serve as primary resource and center of economic issues in Ethiopia;
• Organizing the multipurpose building and related activities as a company for income generating activities (IGA) which strengthen the financial position of EEA in its research and evidence-based policy influence in Ethiopia;
• Organizing capacity building training workshops supported by standard training modules on selected areas of policy analysis; and
• Strengthening the EEA chapters to undertake activities in their respective regions and universities.

2. Evidence-based policy making

The second primary outcome expected from the project is realization of evidence-based economic policy making in Ethiopia. This goal is expected to be attained through realization of the following three intermediate outcomes:

• Undertaking evidence-based research activities and producing policy-relevant findings;
• Organizing public dialogue forums on economic policy issues and producing inputs for policy making; and
• Providing evidence-based advisory services to policy makers and other stakeholders involved in policy making in Ethiopia.

3. Establishment of strong and sustained partnership and networking