EP.04 | S2 | From Talk to Action: APHRC on Transforming African Evidence into Policy and Progress

An African Institution Built for African Realities

APHRC, Mveyange explained, is intentionally African-led and African-based, with headquarters in Nairobi and a regional office in Dakar. Its leadership and staff reflect a Pan-African footprint, operating across more than 35 countries. That design is not cosmetic. According to Mveyange, whose voice matters in policy debates often determines which problems get solved, and which are ignored.

The Triangle: Research, Translation, Capacity

APHRC’s work is organised around three interconnected pillars: research, policy translation, and capacity strengthening. Research spans health and wellbeing, human development, population dynamics and urbanisation, alongside a flagship data science programme integrating AI, big data and rigorous evaluation. But research alone, Mveyange argued, is insufficient. Globally, only about 14 percent of evidence is ever used, often taking 17 years to influence policy. APHRC’s ambition is to compress that gap to four years; recognising that relevance is lost when evidence moves slower than political reality.

Evidence-Informed, Not Evidence for Storage

At the core of APHRC’s approach is Evidence-Informed Decision Making. “We are not affiliated with anyone. We are only affiliated with evidence,” Mveyange said, underscoring APHRC’s non-partisan stance. That independence often places the organisation in contentious spaces, particularly around sexual and reproductive health or social exclusion. For Mveyange, controversy is not failure; it signals that evidence has entered public discourse.

Working with Power, Without Being Captured by It

Although donor-funded, APHRC is not government-driven. It works with governments, parliaments, civil society and continental institutions, supporting everything from Kenya’s sanitation policy to model laws on AI and cybersecurity for Africa. Programmes like Countdown 2030 build capacity within ministries of health across more than 30 countries, using national data to track progress on reproductive health and SDG targets.

The Structural Constraints: Funding, Uptake, Capacity

Mveyange identified three persistent obstacles. First, funding: African R&D investment remains below one percent of GDP in most countries. Second, uptake: policymakers often need rapid answers, while science demands time, creating a structural tension. Third, capacity: not just to produce evidence, but to interpret and apply it. APHRC’s training programmes aim to close all three gaps simultaneously.

From Talk to Action: Fixing the Translation Gap

Turning evidence into action requires dismantling silos. Researchers, policymakers and implementers must be connected from the design stage, not after publication. Platforms like APHRC’s Evidence Alliance aim to consolidate fragmented inputs, particularly in areas like AI, so policymakers receive coherent guidance rather than competing narratives.

Crucially, Mveyange noted, governments are far more likely to act on evidence grounded in their own data, co-created rather than externally imposed. 

“Stop NATO – No Action, Talk Only. There are different players across the evidence value chain. Some of us generate the evidence, while others take that evidence and implement it. But there is a thin layer in between, and that is where translation becomes critical. Those who can use evidence will only use it to the extent that they understand it. If they do not understand it, however good the evidence is, it will simply not be used.”
– Anthony Mveyange, Director of Programs – Synergy, APHRC

 

AI, Identity and Africa’s Place in the World

On AI, Mveyange was clear: disruption is inevitable, but disengagement is not an option. The risk is not AI itself, but African absence, from data, languages and narratives shaping these systems. Feeding African realities into “black box” technologies is, in his view, a matter of digital sovereignty.

The deeper challenge, however, is psychological. Africa’s young people are not primarily asking for money, he said, but for mentorship and belief. Technology can accelerate progress, but only if Africa defines development on its own terms.

The throughline of the conversation was synergy: aligning evidence, policy and people so research does not end in reports, but in impact.