The Think Tank Initiative 2010 annual report

7 December 2010

The Think Tank Initiative has published its annual report. you can download, in Spanish, English and French, here:

I’ll read it and comment on it later. But feel free to do so, too.

At first glance, though, something I found interesting is that during the selection process, IDRC received:  23.5 think tank applications per country in Latin America, 24.6 think tanks per country in West Africa, 27 in East Africa, and 31 in South Asia. I would have expected more think tanks to exist in Latin America than in Africa on the basis that Latin America is a middle income region and has certainly more mature democratic institutions (that don’t always get it right) including a fairly old think tank tradition.

Is it that there are more think tanks in Africa than in Latin America? Why? Or is it that more organisations are considering themselves think tanks in Africa?