The African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and the Global Development Network (GDNet) hosted a Policy Communications Workshop  held on May 24-26, 2011 at the Safari park Hotel, in Nairobi, Kenya. This was one the three back-to-back workshops planned during the period of the biannual research workshop. A total of 27 participants were in attendance. The objective of this workshop was to support researchers make an impact on policy decisions with their research. The aim, was thus to ensure that with the research outputs they have produce they would be able to identify the audience, adjust their message and use the appropriate channels to reach all relevant players involved in policy formulation, adoption and delivery.

The researchers were trained on how to write policy briefs from their work based on the project titeld Reproductive Health, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa. This project was initiated by AERC with two specific aims: The first was to explore the effects of health-related variables (preventive and promotive measures such as vaccination and nutrition, spread of health facilities, HIV/AIDS infection rates, malaria etc.) on poverty via their impact on economic growth. The second aim was to influence preventive policy measures that will save lives through attachments of PhD students to ministries of finance, health and planning, to address the growing health crisis in Africa occasioned by residual budget allocations.

Because empirical evidence on the interactions among health, economic growth and poverty in Africa is lacking, the research project on Reproductive Health, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa was expected to facilitate evidence-based policy responses to managing the African health crisis. The results will be widely disseminated to raise awareness of African governments and policy makers on the need to invest in the health sector. And this is where the workshop came in, because these results need to be disseminated in a format that can easily be taken up by policy makers, the training of policy brief came in handy. The researchers were also trained on other pertinent communication strategies.

This AERC-GDNet workshop drew on researchers’ experiences with their research on the Reproductive Health, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa project. It also provided practical experience support, illustrative example and case studies to help explore and highlight all the different opportunities for the researchers and to communicate in the policy environment. The workshop was part of GDNet Knowledge sharing and regional communications capacity building programme.

Researchers were able to develop a communications strategy and create some sample products such as policy briefs. They were also able to harness some key skills such as how to make an impact online using blogs, face book, twitter, LinkedIn as well as explore their presentation skills while making their case persuasive. There was a lot of practical work to equip the researchers to in future use the tools for better dissemination of their research results.

Facilitation of the workshop was done by a team of specialists from The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) comprising of Kalus von Grebmer (Communications Strategy and Policy Communication specialist), Ashley St. Thomas (Policy Brief and Editorial specialist), Katarlah Taylor (Social Media/Library) and Chris Addison (Head of Web Communications).  A total of 27 participants form 13 African countries took part in the workshop. 

The researcher will now revise their policy briefs on the Reproductive Health, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Africa project and submit to AERC by June 15, 2011. These Policy Briefs will be processed for publication and also posted on the AERC website.