As autonomous initiatives that come from members of the African research community interested in studying any aspect of the social processes in a particular country, NWGs serve as the primary programme instrument through which additional knowledge is generated by CODESRIA around questions which are deemed locally to be of priority concern.  NWGs are, therefore, invariably developed and supported on the basis of perceived national-level needs, with the Council primarily playing the role of encouraging the successful applicants to pay attention to CODESRIA’s abiding commitment to the goal of transcending disciplinary, gender and generational barriers to knowledge production. The autonomy of the NWG is considered an essential factor for its success; it is also integral to the Council’s strategy for valorising national research capacity and interdisciplinary contacts at the country level. NWGs normally have between five and 15 members. They designate their own coordinator (s) who serve(s) as the main link person(s) with CODESRIA.

The call for proposals for the establishment of NWGs is issued annually by CODESRIA and the applications received are assessed through an independent review process. Each NWG is encouraged to hold a methodological workshop involving all of its members, a mid-term review workshop to assess the progress made by each of the participants, and final workshop to evaluate the fully revised draft papers preparatory to their submission for consideration for publication by the Council. Members of NWGs are encouraged to carry out fieldwork over extended periods of time. CODESRIA provides a research grant to the members of the NWG and additional support through CODICE. More experienced scholars in the NWG are encouraged to mentor the younger during the life of the NWG. NWG coordinators edit the results of the work undertaken by the members of the group and submit a book manuscript for publication. The average lifespan of an NWG is eighteen (18) months, during which time all aspects of the research process are expected to be completed and the final results prepared for publication in the CODESRIA Book Series.

In the last seven years or so, 40 NWGs were established in 25 countries by CODESRIA. The number of countries covered by the programme registered a steady annual increase with 2003 standing out as the year in which a record number of applications – over 100 - were received, and the largest number of NWGs in any given year established. The increases recorded were as much a function of the growing demand within the social research community as the allocation of increased resources to the programme by the Council in order to meet the needs expressed by the sheer volume of applications flowing in. Countries that benefited from the NWGs programme include those such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Senegal, where strong traditions of research are already in existence. But, in accordance with the CODESRIA Strategic Plan objectives for the period 2002 – 2006, attention was also paid to those communities which were weaker and more marginal, including those like The Gambia and Mauritania where universities were only recently established, Island states of Africa such as Mauritius, and landlocked ones like the Central African Republic.

The research themes covered by the NWGs supported over the period 2000 to 2006 are very rich. Among some of them are topics that focus on subjects that are also usually neglected in the work of African social researchers but which over the years have proved to be increasingly central to the making of politics, economy and society on the continent. Some of the themes in this category include those on the musical industry (NWG Senegal), popular forms of accountability (Nigeria), and the transition from micro-enterprises to capitalist enterprises (DRC). Interestingly too, a subject which featured prominently in post-independence discourses  - the military and politics - before it went into recession in the 1990s was also the subject of a renewed historical study during the period covered by this report. An NWG on this subject was supported in Niger which is also one of the countries that has historically been marginal in CODESRIA’s work but which the Council was able successfully to integrate into its outreach strategy through, among others, the NWG programme.

NWGs often provide unique opportunities for researchers studying the country concerned to work together and produce literature of high relevance to local needs. In some countries, the books emanating from the CODESRIA NWGs represent the only study on the domestic political economy produced by locally-resident researchers. It has also not been surprising that books flowing from the NWG programme serve as text books in various universities, in addition to feeding into local and national policy debates. Furthermore, the output of NWG research networks contributes to the processes involved in the renewal of the CODESRIA intellectual agenda. Members of some NWGs supported by CODESRIA worked so well together and felt motivated to continue to combine their efforts that, over the years, they created their own research centres to serve as a platform for their continued collaboration. In addition to the NWGs established under the core NWG programme, there are also NWGs established under the Child and Youth Studies Programme and the Lusophone Africa Initiative.  

NWGs Launched in 2006 

• Review of Zimbabwe Land and Agrarian Reform (2000-2005);
  Coordinator: Prof. Sam Moyo

• Historicising Development: Towards a Theoretical Construction of the Petro-State in Africa (Nigeria); Coordinator: Prof. Ben Naanen

• High Oil Prices and Economic Activity in the African Countries: Is there an Asymmetric Impact (Algeria)? Coordinator: Prof. Kouider Boutaleb

• L’Industrie Musicale Sénégalaise Face au Défi des Nouvelles Technologies de L’Information et de la Communication: Etats des Lieux et Perspectives.

NWGs 2005

• Politics of Antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV/AIDs in Nigeria
• Sustaining agriculture and forest land uses in the Afram Plains of Ghana
• Gender, Culture and women participation and performance in banana trade in Tanzania: a value case analysis
• Libéralisation du commerce et contrôle de l’hygiène alimentarie à Oagadougou
• Espaces, culture matérielle et identities en Sénégambie
• Accompagnment des entrepreneurs: genre et performance des TPE/PE en phase de demarrage dans les villes de Douala et Yaounde

NWGs 2004

• Crise Socio-Politique, Re-Compositions Identitaires et Processus de Construction de l’Idée de Nation en Côte d’Ivoire
• Conflits Armés et Refondation de l’Etat au Congo-Kinshasa
• Popular Forms of Accountability in Nigeria
• Transforming Gender Relations – Exploring Masculinities in the making of the Ghanaian Nation(Aloysius Denkabe)
• Globalization and International Migration from Zimbabwe
• Representations of disease and healing practices: A look at Handa therapeutic practices and pharmacopoeia
• Dimensions of poverty and vulnerability in Cape-Verde: A systemic and interdisciplinary approach
• Bijagos: Structure and functioning of traditional power (Guine-Bissau)
• Analysis of socio-spatial dynamics in Nampula city

NWGs 2003

• Le Maroc actuel : crise du modèle de développement et dynamique de changement politique
• Marketization Versus Equity: The Implications of Privatization of Higher Education on Access and Knowledge Production in  Kenya
• Ghana - One decade of the liberal state
• Rethinking national security in the post colonial African state : envisioning new aesthetic and ethical imperatives for viable internal security and sustainable integration
• Federal presence in Nigeria : the sung and unsung basis of ethnic grievance
• Facteurs de transition de la micro entreprise à l'entreprise capitaliste moderne : un exam du cas de la République Démocratique du Congo
• Civil Society and the search for development alternatives in Cameroon
• Le processus démocratique au Bénin : genèse, dynamique et perspectives
• L'industrie musicale au Sénégal : aspects socioculturels politiques, économiques et juridiques

NWGs 2002

• L'Algérie face à la mondialisation
• Evaluation de la décentralisation des services de santé au Congo. Le cas des circonscriptions de Pointe-Noire et de Ouesso
• Armée et politique au Niger
• Innovative approaches in the establishment, operation and management of a young African university - the experience of the University of the Gambia
• Democratization process in Kenya