Luis Alberiko Gil-Alaña, researcher at the Navarra Center for International Development (NCID), visited Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya, for research collaboration and to teach over 10 days.
The Pamplona-based expert in macroeconomics gave two courses on Econometrics and Data Analysis to students in Strathmore Business School and the Master of Public Policy. The course for the Masters students was organized by the Financial Sector Deepening Kenya, an organization that targets financial inclusion of the Kenyan population to improve livelihoods of lower-income households through reduced vulnerability to shocks, increased incomes and employment.
Students from this program work for the Central Bank of Kenya, the Ministry of Economy and the Treasury of Kenya, as well as others who work as financial regulators.
Professor Luis A. Gil-Alaña also gave a course on Times Series Analysis, an econometric technique, to which he has contributed much, to undergraduates of the Faculty of Economics at Strathmore University.
Luis A. Gil-Alaña highlighted the “motivation and eagerness to learn” from students as a factor that brings him back to Nairobi. Since 2013 the professor of the Faculty of Economics and researcher at the NCID has been travelling to Strathmore University for similar activities.
Visit to co-authors of research
“I have an ongoing project on macroeconomic stability in Sub-saharan Africa, and Kenya is one of the countries that we study”, explained Gil-Alaña. During his trip, he was able to visit his co-authors (and collaborators of the NCID), Robert Mudida y Simon Ndiritu, both Professors from Strathmore Business School. They hope to publish this research in the coming months.
Lastly, Gil-Alaña worked to open a relationship with the World Bank and Central Bank of Kenya to collaborate on another project titled, “Macroeconomic and Financial Stability in Developing Economies: Country and Currency unions in Subsaharan Africa”.