The Africa Evidence Network (AEN) is a project of the Pan-African Collective for Evidence based in Johannesburg. Our team has provided the secretariat to the Africa Evidence Network since the Network's formation in late 2012. This work has been unfunded except for the period January 2014 to December 2016 when it received funding from the UK's Department for International Development as part of a grant to Build Capacity to Use Research Evidence (UJ-BCURE). The AEN is a not-for-profit project.We believe that power and knowledge for change is ultimately contained within communities, and that as such only together can evidence-informed decision-making become a reality in the continent. The AEN consists of over 4000 members from across the continent, crossing sectors and including a balanced membership across evidence producers, users and intermediaries. The Network aims to share information, increase understanding and raise awareness of evidence in order to develop and support an efficient and effective evidence community in Africa. In doing so, we aim to increase the use of evidence in decision-making in order to contribute to reductions in poverty and inequality across the continent.