Okumu, Boscow
Boscow Okumu holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Cape Town with specialization in Environmental and Natural resource Economics. He is currently a Deputy Director in the Public Debt Management Office at the National Treasury in Kenya where he is charged with the responsibility of carrying out due diligence on new debt instruments; Planning, appraising, monitoring, and evaluating projects and generating reports on the funded projects; Liaising with domestic and external partners on budgeting, counterpart funding, disbursements and reimbursements of funds; and recommending duty and Value Added Tax (VAT) exemptions for Donor funded projects among others.
Experience
Dr. Okumu previously worked with the African Population and Health Research Center as an Associate Research Scientist and was responsible for supporting the design and implementation of impact evaluation studies at the center. Prior to that, he also worked with the National Treasury and Economic Planning as a Principal Economist in the Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate.
He has over 15 years’ hands on expertise and working experience in monitoring and evaluation of government policies and programmes at both national and devolved levels with strong expertise in: integrated development planning; monitoring and evaluation; strategic planning; indicator development, development and design of impact evaluations, midterm and end term evaluations. Okumu is a seasoned evaluator and is passionate about working with local teams to build capacity and support for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems and using data to generate evidence for decision-making.
Research Interests
Okumu’s areas of research are more focused toward food systems and landscapes that sustain the planet, drive prosperity and improve livelihoods. Specifically, his research areas are mainly in environmental and natural resources economics, focusing on the nexus between welfare, gender and environmental conservation, community-based natural resource conservation, valuation of ecosystem services using revealed and stated preference methods, institutions, collective action, climate change, food systems, food and nutrition security and water, energy, health and agricultural economics fields. He also has experience in impact evaluations using various econometric approaches, bio-economic modeling, contingent behavior models, choice experiments, and experimental auctions, among others.
Professional Memberships
1. Africa Association of Environmental Resource Economists
2. International Development and Evaluation Association,
3. Economists Society of Kenya.
Awards and Grants
- 2019 Peter Berck’s Best EfD Discussion Paper Award (US $750)
- June 2017 – October 2017: Marie Curie scholarship for Economic Modeling for Climate-Energy Policy (ECOCEP) at the Charles University, Prague Czech Republic
- 2016: Research Grant: Economic Policy and Research Unit (EPRU)- University of Cape Town
- UCT PhD Package Scholarship (University of Cape Town (2015-2017)
- 2015: PhD Research Grant: Environment for Development (EfD), SIDA University of Gothenburg
- 2012-2015: African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) PhD Scholarship