When peers learn from peers – how exchange strengthens data‑driven policymaking in Africa

Representatives from Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Togo gathered in Pretoria for the Data Lab meeting on 25 March. Photo: UNU-WIDER. ‘Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it’. –Akan proverb Governments across sub-Saharan Africa increasingly recognize the policy value of administrative tax data . The harder task is to turn that recognition into practice. As UNU Rector Tshilidzi Marwala argues, the issue is not only technical capacity but data sovereignty : the ability of governments to collect, govern, and use their own data to shape policy on their own terms. Doing so requires institutional infrastructure, trusted governance, and opportunities for countries to learn from one another. Two events in Pretoria in late March 2026 illustrated what that learning can look like in practice. The SA-TIED programme , a UNU-WIDER country programme, convened a two-day conference on 23–24 March, bringing together senior policymakers, analysts, and academics to engage with research on South Africa's most pressing economic challenges—from labour markets and firm dynamics to inequality, taxation, and fiscal policy. What distinguished the conference is the decade of collaboration behind it: sustained work between government and research partners, built around a secure data facility and the shared policy questions it helps answer. Building on the conference, UNU‑WIDER convened a regional data lab meeting in Pretoria on 25 March 2026, extending the conversation for broader peer‑to‑peer exchanges between sub‑Saharan African countries. Participants from Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa, at the SA-TIED conference held 23–24 March. Photo: UNU-WIDER. From national collaboration to regional learning If the SA‑TIED conference showed what sustained collaboration can achieve within one country, the data lab meeting asked a complementary question: how can countries in the region learn from one another as they build similar capabilities under