Collaboration with the National Treasury

The PPH is currently exploring a collaboration with the National Treasury, particularly its Intergovernmental Relations Division. This potential collaboration focuses on the Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA), which is essential for stabilizing financial management systems within municipalities. Given its mandatory implementation since 1 July 2017, there is a critical need to comprehensively analyse its raw data using machine learning techniques. This analysis will assist municipalities in improving local governance and their decision-making processes. Additionally, discussions are ongoing to strengthen the Intergovernmental Relations Division’s staff skills through advanced postgraduate degrees, such as Master's and PhDs. This initiative will enable staff to apply their data for academic research, fostering both professional and academic growth.

Collaboration with the Gauteng Provincial Treasury

Discussions are currently underway with the Municipal Fiscal Planning, Policy, and Research Unit of the Gauteng Provincial Treasury to produce Municipal Economic Socio profiles and review outlooks for Gauteng municipalities. Additionally, these efforts include comparative studies with the Western Cape and other provinces, facilitated through Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA) and the Public Policy Hub (PPH). This collaboration aims to enhance the fiscal planning and policy research capabilities of the municipalities, ensuring data-driven and evidence-based decision-making processes.

Collaboration with Université Clermont Auvergne - École d'Économie

We are currently exploring a double degree and student exchange program, as well as co-supervision opportunities, between the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria and Université Clermont Auvergne in France. This initiative would enable each university to host the other’s graduate students (Honours, Masters, PhD), allowing them to learn at our respective institutions, benefit from co-supervision, and ultimately earn a double degree if negotiations in this regard are successful.

Collaboration with the International Public Policy Association (IPPA)

Additionally, we are exploring a collaborative partnership between the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS), through the Public Policy Hub (PPH), and the International Public Policy Association (IPPA). Our goal is to co-organize a seasonal school specifically designed for PhD students and early career scholars to enhance their knowledge of public policy, contribute to their internationalization, and develop their global network. This partnership also aims to provide executive training programs for public sector officials throughout South Africa and the wider African continent.

Collaboration with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Cameroon

We have initiated a collaboration with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Cameroon, a prestigious pan-African network dedicated to advancing postgraduate education, research, and public engagement in mathematical sciences. This partnership offers AIMS students the opportunity to apply their data science and geospatial expertise to real-life challenges facing the public sector in Africa. Through this collaboration, the PPH proposed policy-relevant research topics to Master’s students at AIMS and provided co-supervision for these students. The aim is to produce co-authored scholarly publications with participating students and to offer pathways to Ph.D. studies at the University of Pretoria, allowing them to apply real-life project experiences to their academic pursuits. This initiative enhances academic collaboration, strengthens research capacity within the region, and provides evidence-based policy recommendations to policymakers.

Between April and June 2024, Prof Monkam co-supervised two AIMS students in collaboration with a Ph.D. student in Applied Mathematics at Stellenbosch University. We were assisted by a lecturer in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics, and Meteorology at UP. The students' master’s theses focused on the following topics:

• Assessing the Impact of Urban Growth Dynamics on Quality and Access to Service Delivery in Uganda using Supervised Machine Learning.
• Urban Growth Analysis in Relation to Revenue Mobilization Across Major Cities in Uganda.

Both students received a Distinction for their master’s theses.

Through our collaboration with AIMS, we plan to build a team of Ph.D. students, postdocs, and research assistants in data science with applications in public policy and municipal finance. We are actively seeking sponsors to support these initiatives, aiming to further strengthen the intersection of academic research and practical policy solutions in Africa.