Public Affairs, jointly with Communications, are increasingly the most strategic functions in today’s business. Public Affairs professionals not only aim to influence public policy, but also build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders and reinforce a company ?s reputation. Therefore, to understand and manage political, regulatory and competitive environments is key in order to better anticipate challenges and opportunities, and maximize and deliver business-value or companies, in the long term and in a sustainable manner. The Public Affairs function, now a days, englobe the management of all the relationships an organization (public or private) has with all its key stakeholders, and combines different disciplines such as government relations, stakeholders management, media communications, crisis management, corporate and social responsibility, and strategic corporate communications advice. This course will provide students a core background in the central topics of Public Affairs and the knowledge to elaborate a professional Public Affairs Strategy.

We will start revising the basic concepts in Public Affairs, Lobby and Advocacy, and how this function fits in a company ?s organization. Afterwards, we will focus on the process of policy formation and the wider corporate communications and reputational context in which public affairs operates. This will provide a broad foundation on which subsequent issues will be viewed. We will discuss and work the different phases (research, planning, execution and evaluation), tactics, tools and disciplines required to define and implement a professional Public Affairs Strategy, in order to elaborate our own one. An analytical perspective is applied to encourage students to take a reflective approach in examining their own project. We will also analyse the different regional and external factors (cultural, economic, political, social), with special focus in Middle East and Africa Regions, that need to be taken into consideration to define an effective International Public Affairs Strategy. Finally, we will talk about Ethics and Transparency in modern Public Affairs and we analyse how we measure results (metrics).

Through the entire course we will discuss cases from different industries, sectors and countries to better understand and work the different concepts. The course is designed to provide students with a deep understanding on the Public Affairs function as well as with the conceptual tools needed to design and implement a (local / international) Public Affairs strategy and execute effective lobby and advocacy campaigns.

Students will learn how to engage with key stakeholders in order to explain organisational policies and views on public policy issues, assisting policy makers in amending or laying down better policies and legislations