Reimaging Evidence for Africa’s Future: Reflections from the 2025 Africa Evidence Summit.

By Mercy Mwangi

The 2025 Africa Evidence Summit (AES), held on June 23-24 in Nairobi, convened over 500 leaders in policy, research, and development from across the continent and beyond. Co-hosted by the Centre for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and the Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa (NIERA), the event centered around the theme “Better Data for Decision-Making.”

SET Africa participated in this milestone gathering, refining our commitment to youth empowerment, climate resilience, and African-led innovation ecosystems. The summit highlighted a powerful shift in the development space, one that places African evidence, researchers, and institutions at the centre of decision-making.

Key Takeaways for SET Africa

• African Ownership of Evidence Systems

A central thread through the summit was the call to reposition African researchers as the primary producers and custodians of actionable evidence. SET Africa resonates deeply with this agenda, aligning with our strategy to strengthen local data systems and ethical research governance.

For decades, much of Africa’s development data has been collected through projects designed abroad, often driven by donor priorities and published in global policy spaces with limited feedback loops to the communities it concerns. The result: Research Without Resonance, Data Without Agency, and Policy Without Roots.

This summit took deliberate steps to disrupt that pattern. Speakers across multiple panels, from government officials to independent researchers, called for a reset in how we think about research legitimacy and decision-making power.

They placed emphasized on:

A compelling example shared at the summit came from Kenya’s Ministry of Education, which is now using geospatial data to plan the distribution of new schools across the country. This deliberate move, away from politically motivated infrastructure decisions towards data informed, equity-driven school placement, shows the potential of local evidence systems to redress structural inequalities, when governments are equipped and willing to use them. It is also a clear case of researchers and public institutions co-designing solutions in real time.

For SET Africa, this isn’t new terrain, it is the backbone of our approach. Whether we are co-designing youth employment pipelines, building sustainable roadmaps with governments, or embedding circular economy solutions in climate programming, we recognize that transformative, sustained change only happens when evidence is generated, interpreted, and applied by local actors.

At SET Africa, we don’t just advocate for African-led development, we help build the systems and partnerships that make it possible.

One of the most compelling throughlines of the summit was the reminder that youth employment is not just an economic issue, it is a structural one, requiring coordinated multi-dimensional responses.

For years, development responses have treated youth unemployment as a training gap, focused almost exclusively on skills-building. But the evidence presented during the summit, particularly from randomized control trials in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa, challenged this narrow framing. The data was clear: Technical Training Alone is Insufficient.

What works is more holistic; a blending of vocational education with psychosocial support, mentorship, soft skills training, and digital access. These integrated models yielded job placement increase of up to 30%, especially when coupled with job-matching technologies and structure internships.

This is where SET Africa’s work is already leading. Our youth livelihood pipeline does not treat young people as passive recipients of skills but positions them as co-creators of solutions within their communities. We work with governments, corporates, and innovation hubs to design initiatives that connect young people to opportunities, through entrepreneurship, employment, and public participation.

For SET Africa, the way forward is clear: Doubling down on interventions that integrate employment readiness with digital equity, civic engagement, and systems change.

♦ Climate Resilience and Gender-Inclusive Adaptation

Across multiple panels at the African Evidence Summit, one theme stood out: climate shocks are no longer hypothetical, they are deeply lived realities for African communities, especially for those in informal settlements, arid regions, and frontline farming communities. The research presented did not just diagnose climate risks, it offered clear evidence of what
enables households to bounce back and adapt.

A standout study by Tigist Meckonnen Melesse (Founder & Director of the Social Innovation and Impact Institute) used machine learning to analyse household resilience patterns across East Africa. The findings were unambiguous: Resilience is not built in a crisis; it is shaped long before. Households that had access to savings, diversified livelihoods, and strong social
support networks, weathered shocks far better than those without.

Other studies, such as Abdulrasheed Isah’s (Doctoral candidate, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich) work in Nigeria, used satellite imagery and on-the-ground surveys to show how women in flood-prone areas are already innovating around climate impacts; moving into trade, services, and crafts when farming becomes untenable. These insights reframed women not as vulnerable groups, but as key agents of adaption, often making the earliest and most strategic shifts in livelihood patterns.

The summit also reminded us that fragile states and underserved counties, continue to receive the least support, despite facing the highest climate burdens. That insight pushes us to do more, not just to support innovation in well-resources areas, but to embed climate resilience into governance, finance, and service delivery at the margins.

From innovative machine learning studies on household shock absorption to satellite-based insights on flooding and livelihoods, the message was clear: Proactive, gender-responsive strategies are essential for building climate resilience. SET Africa continues to champion these approaches within our circular economy and urban resilience frameworks.

♦ Inclusive Evidence Ecosystems

Throughout the summit, a recurring call was made to ensure that research is not just rigorous, but also equitable, co-created, and community driven. The emphasis on local voice, particularly of women, youth, and refugees, aligns with SET Africa’s approach to participatory development and system change.

This shift from extractive data practices to community-led knowledge systems, is not just a matter of ethics, it is a matter of effectiveness. When communities are included from the beginning, the evidence generated is more relevant, the solutions more grounded, and the uptake more sustainable.

Several sessions spoke directly to this. The panel on building an inclusive research ecosystem, anchored by voices like Dr. Jane Mariara (Executive Director, Partnership for Economic Policy) and Michel Ndayikeza (Assistant Professor, University of Burundi) emphasized that marginalized populations; especially women, youth, refugees, and rural communities, must not only be consulted, but embedded within research design, governance, and dissemination.

At the heart of this approach is a belief that data justice is development justice. It is not enough for evidence to be technically sound; it must also be democratically produced and socially accountable.

The summit affirmed what we’ve known: The future of research in Africa must be inclusive by design, not inclusive by default. And for SET Africa, that means continuing to build evidence ecosystems that are not only effective, but equitable, participatory, and truly transformative.

♦ AI and Ethical Innovation

Spotlighted in AES 2025 was the emerging uses of AI and machine learning in the development sector, with strong calls for African-led frameworks. The consensus was clear: If AI is going to shape development systems in Africa, then Africans must be at the centre of how it is built, governed, and applied.

Panellists from organizations like Jacaranda Health, Digital Green, and the Agency Fund presented compelling examples of how AI and large language models (LLMs) are already being used to automate systematic reviews, improve meta-analyses, and enhance real-time data collection in health and education programming. But alongside the promise came critical caution.

There were repeated calls for:

• African-led frameworks for responsible AI, to avoid replicating colonial or extractive patterns in the digital space.
• Bias mitigation strategies, to address the crisis of applying Western-trained models in African contexts without adaptation.
• Public interest safeguards, to ensure that the benefits of AI are distributed equitably, and not just concentrated among well-resourced actors.

This affirms our perspective as SET Africa that AI as not just a tool; it is a political and social infrastructure. If misapplied, it can exacerbate existing inequalities. But if designed intentionally, it holds immense potential to bridge service gaps, deepen participation, and accelerate learning cycles in government, corporates, and development programming.

Looking Ahead

As SET Africa deepens its impact across the continent, the Africa Evidence Summit 2025 served as a powerful reminder: The Future of Development is African-led, Data-informed, and Grounded in Community Agency.

We are excited to build on the ideas and partnerships sparked at the summit to accelerate equitable-based transformation.

The needs and aspirations of communities must be the centre of any programming and policy processes.

Stay connected as we continue to shape Africa’s future; One Data Point, One Voice, One Innovation at a Time.