From September 13 to 17, 2021, the Africa Evidence Network hosted the 3rd Africa Evidence Week : Africa Evidence Week 2021.
It’s a virtual celebration that promotes African organizations working on evidence informed decision-making.

This year's objective was to showcase and promote the state of EIDM on the continent, specifically highlighting the involvement of Africa’s decision-makers.

ACED was also there and deeply involved in the celebration. In three blogs posts, written by Frejus Thoto and Rodrigue Castro Gbedomon, we present the state of evidence use in policymaking in Benin and shared some of the lessons we learned in our work of promoting evidence use by policy makers.
You can read these different blogs on our website.
Connecting evidence to policy and practice in Benin: lessons and perspectives
Why do West African NGOs need to effectively use evidence in FSN interventions?
Changing the use of evidence trajectory in policymaking: Why we shift from 60%-40% to 40%-60%?

Thus, during the event, we broadcast a video in which ACED’s Dr. Rodrigue Castro gave an overview of our research report on the analysis of the state of evidence use by local policymakers in Benin. This allowed participants to learn some key messages from the report. One of these key messages is that central government plays a preponderant role in the decision-making chain at the local level. Therefore, for greater impact, we need to broaden our interventions and include central government in our strategy for evidence use promotion.

Full details of Africa Evidence Week 2021 can be found on the AEN website.