The African Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (ACCEDE) was established at the School of Government in September 2007.
ACCEDE plays a critical role in mobilising scholars and resources towards a constructive but critical examination of the factors and policy environments which support or inhibit the development of a more inclusive citizenship in the region and continent.
ACCEDE Director, Professor Lisa Thompson and her team believe in tackling the concept of how ordinary people exercise their citizenship. This grassroots approach to examining how services and delivery can be accessed by the public has resulted in significant engagement with all social structures. This includes jointly hosting policy advocacy workshops and training sessions with local government officials as well as with local councillors, ward committee members and community based NGOS, NPOs and CBOs.
Professor Thompson specializes in research that examines socio-economic issues pertaining to rights in the South. Southern Africa remains a particular focus, although recent research has tended to examine developmental trends at local level within South Africa and the national and global impacts of these policies.
Forms of engagement between society and the state around development and democracy are a central aspect of this research: the ways in which ordinary people engage with the state and mobilize themselves in governance structures at grassroots is a key area of focus. The impact of gendered framings of democracy and development is also a continuous focus of this work.
ACCEDE continues to consolidate and diversify its research programmes and policy advocacy dimensions of current research on citizenship, democracy and development. For the past ten years, ACCEDE has been part of the International Development Research Centre on Citizenship (CDRC) based at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, and new phases of research also began in a number of programmes. The CDRC has brought together researchers and research institutions from India, Mexico, Angola, Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya and Bangladesh in joint research over the past decade.
The ACCEDE research team, consisting of both core staff as well as academic staff across the Economics and Management Sciences Faculty, are involved in a number of interrelated Programmes and Projects. Postdoctoral and doctoral candidates are also involved in the research with funding provided from the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation and Vlaamse Inter-Universitaire Raad (VLIR).
ACCEDE also hosts a number of research initiatives on Citizenship and Democracy as part of the VLIR programme on the Dynamics of Building a Better Society. Urban development and poverty alleviation strategies, and forms of engagement and mobilisation across the global South are key focus areas.