 Policymakers the world over face big questions about how best to promote economic development. Yet they often lack the evidence to address them. The challenges of poverty, the challenges of a growing population who need jobs and the challenges of tight government budgets all make policy-relevant research critical. While government departments have staff with important skills, knowledge and experience choosing the right path requires solid evidence. Developing countries sometimes face an added challenge. They often lack staff to carry out this work. United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research is working to strengthen capacity. UNU Wider's collaboration with the University of Ghana is just one example. For a developing country the most important goal you can have is to transform the structure of the economy. In order to do that you need a lot of knowledge. We are not going to transform Ghana or any other African country without the skills that are required. We have a PhD program for the past four years. Just after the courses they go to Finland for three months for internship. So over there they are able to write their proposals, have access to data and all the other resources that are available at WIDA. This University of Ghana and UNU Wider collaboration aims at strengthening research capacity in Africa by Africans for Africa. By training them here there is a high possibility of retaining that capacity here for development. And also we encourage the students to work on topics that can easily fit policy-making. I'm examining the trend and pattern of inequality of opportunity and the processes behind possible intergenerational poverty traps and escapes in developing countries like Ghana. I'm looking at countries that are abundant in natural resources. There is this resource-cares phenomenon. Countries that are dependent on resource rents actually do very poorly in the area of non-resource revenue mobilization. The program actively encourages women into a historically male-dominated profession. With the help of the UNU Wider support to the program, we have currently about half of the PhD candidates being female. Ultimately these initiatives would benefit the economies of West Africa. We have students that are coming in from Sierra Leone. We have students coming in from Nigeria. They should be going back to their countries to participate in further training there and also in policy-making. This program is part of a series of UNU Wider programs aimed at strengthening capacity. Many of these include prolonged stays at UNU Wider in Helsinki. Visitors are able to access world-class resources and gain exposure to the cutting edge of the development research community. Visiting scholars have the chance to collaborate with other experts in the field, while PhD students can also develop their skills under the mentorship of established development economists. One of the things UNU Wider does is facilitating the scholarship of young economists from developing countries. I am one example. At the heart of these exchanges are long-lasting ties that foster learning across generations, regions and areas of expertise, learning that flows both ways, from south to north and north to south. In Vietnam, young researchers are working together with UNU Wider staff on fieldwork to try to understand the causes and consequences of inequality in the region. In South Africa, government researchers collaborate with researchers from all over the world in harnessing one of the most advanced databases on firm activity on the continent. This tax date is incredibly useful. It's much better than any other data we could have to try to evaluate this kind of a topic. I've seen my economists in my unit grow dramatically from the exposure that they've gotten with these international researchers across departments and with more senior policymakers really opened up. Across the global south, the South Mod project provides training and support on how to model the economy and combines it with experience and insights on the ground. So on the basis of this model, we're able to simulate and be able to understand what are the likely options and what would it cost government to implement such measures. Over the last three decades, many thousands of economists at varying stages in their career have benefited from capacity strengthening initiatives. The deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana is just one of them. I went to UNU Wider in Helsinki in August 2004, going to UNU Wider brought me closer to research. Research has been very important in my career now that is very central and critical to my day-to-day decisions that I make as deputy governor of the central bank. It's providing the atmosphere, the platform and opportunities for networking with people from different varied backgrounds to be able to learn from each other and strengthen each other in research making and policy making. With its commitment to creating and sharing knowledge for development, UNU Wider builds opportunities for research and collaboration around the world, each and every day. Please join us in strengthening capacity as we strive to promote sustainable and equitable development for all.