Capacity development and training have been a critical and central component of the work at IDEP from the time of its establishment. Indeed, it is at the heart of the Institute’s mandate and mission. It is a function which the Institute has carried out over the years with a strong emphasis on senior and middle level career officials drawn mainly from the executive arm of governments across the continent. Most of the training programmes offered at the Institute are anchored around economic management and development planning, including those policy analysis, development planning, sectorial policies, revenue mobilization, budgeting, gender equality, environmental sustainability, employment creation, regulatory oversight, trade relations and negotiations. IDEP has an existing reputation for the agendasetting and innovative policy research which it undertook or facilitated on various aspects of the development challenges facing the countries of Africa during the 1960s into the 1970s. In the course of the 1980s and 1990s, in the context of the economic crises confronting African countries, the Institute devoted the bulk of its attention to undertaking advisory services as requested by African governments and expanding its capacity development and training activities. The changing context and agenda of global and local development call for the generation of new policy knowledges for which the revival of development research at or under the auspices of IDEP has to be a key component.
