Unit Finds Niche in Greater Visibility

Communications & Outreach

The year under review saw PASGR implement a Strategic Plan recommendation to delink its communications function from the Professional Development and Training Programme. The Communications and Outreach Unit is charged with enhancing PASGR’s institutional and external communications, facilitating the creation of policy and research communities and implementing PASGR’s digital platforms.

It was an active year for the unit. In 2015, Communications oversaw the production of four corporate publications, namely, Strategic Plan 2014-2018, Annual Report 2014, the PASGR brochure and the MRPP brochure, which were disseminated in print and online PDF versions.

Tasked with organising and managing coverage of PASGR’s events and activities, the unit posted an online press release on the launch of the MRPP programme, which generated coverage by 70 online news services, including Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones Factiva and others in the region. Two MRPP teaching staff featured on Kenya’s popular Cheche morning show on Citizen TV to discuss the role of universities in African governance.

The unit also established PASGR’s social media presence, launching and updating organisational accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google+. Following live tweets posted during the Kenya National Data Forum in August, PASGR was recognised as one of the most influential ‘recent users’ Twitter feeds during the Forum.

An important activity of the unit was developing a strategy to guide the organisation’s communications and outreach activities. In addition, both the PASGR and MRPP websites were redesigned in 2015 in line with current best practice in online and digital technology.