EfD Kenya’s annual general meeting is a forum that brings together all researchers and staff to discuss the challenges, opportunities, successes, and lessons learned over the past year and give the way forward for the coming year. The 2021 general meeting was held in Mombasa, on December 7-9.
EfD Kenya is a network center currently housed at the University of Nairobi, Department of Economics, Population and Development Studies. Members present stated that the center has two senior research fellows, fifteen research fellows, two international research associates, and eight junior researchers. The members have recruited additional three new junior researchers. It was also highlighted that the center has three ongoing projects funded by SIDA.
Strengths and weaknesses were highlighted
Among the risks and challenges that slowed down the center’s achievement in 2021 were low support and participation from stakeholders, a low number of senior researchers, little visibility, and weak collaboration. However, its success is built on good mentorship and coaching, broad expertise, a strong brand, gender inclusiveness, a good network, trust, and professionalism.
Action plan addresses the challenges
The center decided to create an EfD calendar to promote the visibility of EfD program activities, work collaboratively in proposal writing and center-to-center learning, revise the strategic plan, increase policy engagement with stakeholders, and recruit a stakeholder engagement specialist to be a center of excellence.
Nomination of the executive committee
Participants elected and approved the executive committee for 2022-2024 who was tasked with the mandate to nominate a policy advisory committee, advise on journals to publish in, among others. The committee includes:
- Prof. Richard Mulwa – Center Director and Chairperson
- Prof. Anthony Wambugu- Department of Economics and development studies Chairperson
- Dr. Helen Hoka
- Dr. Laura Barasa
- Dr. Josiah Ateka
- Dr. Jackson Otieno
The participants also undertook discussions on center by-laws, seminar series calendar and capacity building opportunities in scientific writing, specialized software training specifically in Stata, R and Python, choice modeling, and qualitative writing.
By: Jane Maina