Joseph Obosi (University of Nairobi)

Joseph Obosi holds a PhD in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Nairobi. He has over 20 years of work experience in public policy and administration. He is a Senior Lecturer at the department of Political Science & Public Administration, University of Nairobi where he teaches Public Policy & Administration, Comparative Politics and Research Methods. He has specialized training in research methods, specifically in Advanced Research Design, Survey Design Methods, Impact Evaluation; Monitoring & Evaluation, Comparative Case Analysis, and Applied Quantitative Methods. He is a champion of pedagogical leadership training programme, which equips individuals with intentional and integrated interventions in design, context, processes and content of teaching and learning aimed at maximizing learning outcomes. Dr. Obosi served as Registrar/Secretary of Colleges of Humanities and Sciences and Education & External Studies at the University of Nairobi until the year 2019. He has over 20 publications in books and refereed journals in the areas of water sector reforms, privatization of water delivery, Public Private Partnerships, Health governance and Policy Advisory Systems. His most recent publications include: “Teaching public policy in Africa: Comparing Cameroon and Kenya”; “The Drivers and Impediments of Public Private Partnerships in Kenya”; “Social Protection & Politics of Cash Distribution: The Illusion of COVID 19 Pandemic Palliatives in Kenya and Nigeria”; “Policies for Sustainability of Water Services in Transitional Democracies” and “The Impact of the Resurgence of Consultants on the Role of the Universities in Public Policy Research”. He is currently the coordinator of Public Policy and Research Programmes at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, and an external examiner in Public policy/ Administration/Management in various universities in Africa.  He is also a College member of International Public Policy Association and a founding member of the African Public Policy Network (APPN).

Course: Communicating Policy Engaged Research

Public Policy is about actions and inactions of the government, however defined. Public Policy research is therefore about finding solutions or alternatives to problems, “wicked” or “domesticated” affecting the society either through omissions or commissions of the state.  Whether as consultants, Policy advisors, researchers, academics, the policy message should reach the targeted audience, far and wide.  It, therefore, and of necessity requires a foresight of the problem, its solution, and potential for public policy uptake by relevant stakeholders.  Public Policy uptake does not come easily.  It requires a well calculated efforts of bringing public policy actors on board through a strategic communication outreach.  This process does not come at the end but from the beginning of the proposal development all the way to research output.  It should therefore be a conscious process so as to avoid embarrassment when your research output not only fails to attract interest from policy actors but also not in tandem with the expectations of the actors. Little surprise would it therefore be when hard earned research output, whether by PhD students or seasoned scholars, gather dust in the library shelves or inactive in the digital repositories.  How do some policy actors succeed in setting a policy agenda or narrative while others do not? Why do some research gain more traction than others? Although a few actors might come looking for your work if left to happen by chance, many more will come for your outputs by design if engaged, at least remotely, from the proposal development stage.  It is not that the actors will sit with you to write a proposal.  This hardly happens.   The researcher should have a foresight of the mind and interest of the actors, hence not only inviting their interest but also announcing the presence and visibility in a well packaged design.  The course focusses on designing policy research that can penetrate the space of the targeted actor in the form of policy agenda.

The objectives of the course are twofold: First is to provide each participant with an opportunity to review/not change his/her research work to the extent that it is aligned to the interests of targeted policy actors.  Secondly, to enable participants assess their potential research worth to particular policy actors

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, each participant should be able to:

      i.         appreciate the complexity of public policy research problems

     ii.         determine the level of engagement of policy actors in his/her policy research design

   iii.         Apply the best strategy to communicate his/her research work to targeted policy actors.