Repositioning the Academy for greater impact:

Taking into full consideration the unique features of the Academy, together with its identified special opportunities, AAS has adopted deliberate steps to reposition itself for enhanced impact through the design and implementation of its programme and budget as follows:-

-Formulation and implementation of carefully selected programmes and activities (core programmes) only in areas in which the Academy has strong competitive and comparative advantage in making important impact in the renaissance of Africa;

-Maintaining a secretariat staff component that is modest, yet has the capacity and efficiency to maintain and sustain the technical and coordination support functions of the Academy. Furthermore, the Academy will embark on a new way of doing business: the core intellectual and scientific work will be performed by the diversely endowed fellowship of the Academy, the best skills of the larger science and technology community within Africa and in the diaspora, and the entrepreneural talent in the African business sector and the industrial community worldwide.

-Sustaining its formal recognition and impact as an international science and technology organization through strategic collaboration with international scientific organizations and particularly with the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU);

-Making full use of the enormous potential of the multimedia information technology to network scientists and institutions within Africa and throughout the world, to include promotion and support for interactive dialogue and for keeping awareness on the development opportunities in Africa in high visibility at all times;

-Scaling up more widely and consistently than hitherto, the marketing efforts of the Academy’s brainpower, services and unique products, which recognizing the lessons learnt by the Academy of the vital importance of such efforts in the highly competitive environment of contemporary times;

-Reactivation of RANDFORUM’s activities in promotion of highest level policy advocacy for increased investment in science and technology in the continent;

-Ensuring long-term financial sustainability for the Academy through developing a strategy for the wise investment of the AAS endowment fund. The AAS Endowment Policy and Guideline document has already been developed to deal with the fund’s operational modalities.

Taking into account these seven strategic steps in the design and implementation of the Academy’s core programmes entails phasing out all projects that do not answer to the core concerns of the Academy’s fellowship and stakeholders and bringing on board projects of importance to Africa’s science-led development agenda.