Africa: Speaking Truth to Power Not Easy for African Think Tanks

At the opening of the first African Regional Think Tanks Summit in Irene, Pretoria earlier this week, renowned Cameroonian-born scholar Achille Mbembe described Africa as 'the epicentre of global change.'

He added, however, that this is not fully acknowledged because of the way the continent is portrayed. 'This [Africa] is where the most defining challenges of our times are being played out - sometimes with potentially global consequences and signification, and with increasing urgency,' said Mbembe, a member of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Stereotypes continue to plague thinking about Africa. 'African problems are persistently seen as problems that are happening elsewhere, from a place that is lagging behind,' said Mbembe, who is known, among others, for his 2001 book On the Postcolony.

He proposes a 'fundamental change of perspective,' saying that researchers in Africa should not only focus on problem-solving, but also deliver critical analysis and interpretation that will be relevant to those most affected by policies. He describes this as, 'Producing the kind of knowledge that gives a voice to the voiceless.'

So, who should produce this knowledge? And to what extent can such knowledge be truly Africa-centred if donors from outside the continent fund so many African research institutions and think tanks? On a continent rife with authoritarian regimes, the strengthening of think tanks - similar to the creation of independent media - is a high-stakes and highly political issue.

Meanwhile, think tanks are becoming increasingly influential worldwide. United States President Barack Obama reportedly doesn't make a decision without consulting them, while China is spending millions of dollars on setting up and supporting think tanks - a recognition of their impact as a sign of a nation's soft power.

Yet, think tanks in Africa are still few and far between. They are often underfunded and largely ignored; and not only by the notoriously anti-democratic governments on the continent.

James McGann, Director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Programme (TTCSP) at the University of Pennsylvania, says African think tanks lag behind those in other regions of the world, mostly because they are under-resourced, have a high staff turnover and lack basic communications tools such as proper websites.