2010 Associate Fellows Retreat and Conference

Dear Associate Fellow,  

I send you warm greetings and my best wishes in your various endeavours. We are now in the 8th month of the year 2010 and I consider it proper to felicitate with you over your achievements so far and enjoin you to maintain progress in your activities. As Associate Fellows, you have crucial stakes in the Institute and you make up the critical mass of intellectual resources upon which the Institute draws its strength. We have received reports about the significant strides being made by some of you in your various base institutions and places of work. Please, keep us constantly posted about your milestones and progress.
 
You would recall that the Institute launched a 5-year Strategic Plan 2009-2013, tagged Project Leading Edge at the Associate Fellows Retreat held on 20th February 2009. I am happy to report that the implementation of the Plan is well on course. Its implementation has been boosted by the core institutional grant from the IDRC Think Tank Initiative. The Strategic Plan aims to strengthen AIAE’s institutional capability to produce high-quality research and to use the research to inform and influence economic policy. Both the Strategic Plan and the IDRC TTI share focus on three key areas of capability enhancement: ‘research quality’, ‘organizational performance’ and ‘policy linkages, communication and outreach’.
 
One of the main thrusts of the Strategic Plan is capacity building through training and retraining to upgrade and update research abilities, skills and competencies. Already, the Institute has successfully organized training on STATA-based multivariate techniques in social and economic analysis, with an international expert as the instructor.
 
As you know, we have not held the Associate Fellows Retreat for 2010. The reason is deliberate. We have been looking for a suitable strategic context within which we will organize the Retreat, in order to make it more functional and beneficial to Associate Fellows. Now, we have the appropriate setting. The Associate Fellows Retreat 2010 will hold from August 31 – 1 September 2010 at Enugu, 9.00am-5.00pm daily. This Retreat is one with a difference. The Retreat will feature a training workshop for Associate Fellows on very important skill and capacity needs for effectiveness as researchers and academics. The two areas are: research writing using electronic and web-based tools and research communication tools. The training on research writing will enhance your efficiency and skills in writing research proposals, research reports, scientific publications, policy papers and technical reports. It will focus on the use of state-of-the-arts electronic and web-based programs. On the other hand, the training on research communication will focus on cutting-edge methods and tools for disseminating research to different audience – government, private sector, civil society and the media. The instructor is an international expert based at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington D.C., U.S.A.
 
Workshop fee has been waived for all Associate Fellows. However, admission into the training has three requirements: (1) you have to be an up-to-date Associate Fellow (2) you shall formally confirm your participation and (3) you shall come to the training with a computer laptop. To update your membership as Associate Fellow, you should reply to the mail sent out by the Associate Fellows Liaison Officer, asking you to give some brief information about yourself.
 
Please be sure to update your Associate Fellows membership and confirm in writing that you will take part in this training. You will be informed about further details of the Retreat and training workshop in due course.
 
Let me use this opportunity to urge you to always give us feedback on your activities and endeavour to constantly check our website www.aiaenigeria.org for updates on our programmes and activities. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,