African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) - Collaborative PhD Programme (CPP)

The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) was established in 1988 as a public not-for-profit organization devoted to the advancement of economic policy research and training in Africa. The Consortium’s mandate and strategic intent is built on the basis that sustained development in sub- Saharan Africa requires well-trained, locally based professional economists. AERC agitates the provision of capacity building in economic policy in Francophone and Anglophone African countries through provision of support in the areas of policy research and graduate training.

CPP aims to increase output of professionals conversant with – and specialists in – African issues, leading to the possible emergence of various theories and African solutions to these problems. CPP integrates theory, tools and African applications into academic teaching, ensuring that theory is firmly grounded on the empirical side. Human and other resources available on the continent have been harnessed and pooled to produce a distinctive, common, uniform, high-quality doctoral programme in Africa. 

From the outset, one of CPP’s comparative advantages is its direct relevance to Africa – in terms of research relevance, policy orientation, use of the African reality (data, literature, focus, and examples), and development of theories, literature, and academic materials relevant to Africa – than any comparable doctoral programmes in economics in the world. 

CPP Academic Activities

The Collaborative PhD Programme is a four-year post-MA doctoral programme by coursework, examination and thesis. The programme has four components:

1. Teaching of Core Courses Component 

In the first year of studies, CPP students are offered courses in three core fields (Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Quantitative Methods) at the CPP host-degree awarding universities (host-DAUs). 

2. CPP – Joint Facility for Electives

Upon successfully completing core courses at the host-DAUs, all students are jointly enrolled in their second year of studies for intensive teaching of elective courses by an internationally competitively sourced team of experts for a period of 16 weeks (July to October), at a common facility administered by the AERC – the Joint Facility for Electives (JFE). Each course is divided into two semesters of eight weeks each taught by two different lecturers per subject. Each semester is a complete course with a final examination held at the end of the session. Students select two fields of specializations from among the following approved ten elective courses in addition to a mandatory Research Methods and Computer Applications course:

Approved CPP Core and Elective Courses

The CPP JFE is delivered virtually through live or synchronous lectures via the Zoom platform and AERC’s Learning Management System (LMS), complemented by the AERC eLibrary and MyLoft where textbooks, reference journal articles and lecture materials/notes are easily accessible, and lecture recordings are made available for asynchronous access to lessons by students. The implementation of a virtual rather than a residential CPP JFE has not only broadened reach but also enhanced inclusivity to additional students and network universities other than the traditional CPP DAUs, given that the modality exerts a relatively lower demand on financial and other resources, including physical space and related infrastructural requirements, which are no longer a critical factor.

3. Comprehensive Examinations 

Upon successfully completing coursework, CPP students are required to sit and pass comprehensive examinations in four fields, namely, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and two elective fields they selected during the JFE. These examinations are set by teams of experts in the relevant fields under the supervision of the Secretariat and administered at each of the degree-awarding universities of the participating PhD students, with the final examination results being discussed and approved by the PhD Academic Board.  

4. PhD Thesis

In third and fourth year of studies, students prepare PhD thesis for defense at their respective degree-awarding university. To further strengthen quality and ensure better integration of research and training, CPP students are competitively invited to present during their third and fourth year of study their proposals and best chapters/papers of their thesis with potential for publication in high-end journals or refereed journals at the AERC’s flagship Biannual Research workshops held annually in May/June and December. This way, the CPP students benefit from the peer review mechanism and from the large pool of international resource people, but more importantly, it is an opportunity to shape them into research and policy analysts. 

AERC awards PhD thesis research grants to the students upon successfully presenting and receiving positive reviews of their proposals from thematic group resource persons at the biannual research workshop. 

The fourth and final year of the Collaborative PhD Programme is devoted to final thesis write-up and defense at the degree-awarding university, in accordance with established respective degree-awarding universities rules and procedures.

CPP Participating Universities

For purposes of implementing the programme, the continent is subdivided into four regions, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, Anglophone West Africa, and Francophone Africa, each having two universities categorized as either a host or a non-host CPP degree awarding university.

Host Degree-Awarding Universities

Each of the four regions have a host degree-awarding university assigned the responsibility of teaching courses in core fields in the first year of studies to students admitted in the regional host and non-host DAUs.

• University of Cape Town, South Africa
• University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
• University of Ibadan, Nigeria
• University of Yaoundé II, Cameroon

Non-Host Degree-Awarding Universities

Each of the four Non-host DAUs admit students based on agreed criteria and send them to the regional host-DAUs to take core courses.

Students from all the 8 CPP DAUs are jointly taught elective courses at the Joint Facility for Electives (JFE) in their second year of study before finally proceeding to write their PhD thesis and graduate at their respective degree-awarding universities.

• University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
• University of Nairobi, Kenya
• University of Benin, Nigeria
• Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire

Non-CPP Universities

Other universities on the continent not in the CPP network are referred to as non-CPP DAUs. Other Non-CPP universities offering a doctoral programme with a coursework component are eligible to request AERC’s approval to allow their students to participate virtually in the CPP JFE. The students, must however, abide to all the rules and regulations governing the CPP JFE participation: enrolling for a minimum of two elective courses and a mandatory Research and Computer Applications course; regular class attendance, sitting all JFE examinations as well as the comprehensive examinations.

PhD students from non-CPP universities are also eligible to apply for PhD thesis research grants.

It should also be noted that all universities (including the non-CPP universities) have other avenues of participating in CPP activities like:

• The participatory teaching of core courses at the host universities.
• The participatory teaching of the elective courses at the JFE.
• The training of staff development candidates on the programme under AERC and other sponsorship.
• The participatory supervision of PhD theses, through PhD workshops and sourcing of supervisors from even the non-DAUs.