Speaking at the 2026 OTT Conference, Denis Foretia reflected on what legitimacy really means for think tanks working in African contexts. Drawing on the experience of the Nkafu Policy Institute in Cameroon, he argued that trust cannot be measured solely through international recognition or donor support, but must instead be earned through meaningful relationships with governments, communities and the citizens whose lives policy research seeks to improve.
In one of the 2026 OTT Conference‘s most personal and reflective keynote sessions, Denis explored the relationship between trust, legitimacy, and policy influence through the lens of their own journey from trauma surgeon to think tank leader.
Opening with the story of a young woman treated after a devastating gunshot injury sustained during gang violence in her neighbourhood, Denis reflected on the limits of individual medical intervention. Despite the complexity of the surgery and the eventual success of the operation, the broader conditions that produced the violence remained unchanged.
That experience, Denis explained, shaped a deeper question about impact: how could one move from saving lives one at a time to improving conditions for entire populations?
The answer, he argued, was policy.
Recalling his time at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Denis described being struck by the institution’s tagline: “Protecting health, saving lives, millions at a time.” The phrase became a turning point, prompting the realisation that structural policy change could transform far more lives than individual clinical practice alone. That insight ultimately led to the creation of the Nkafu Policy Institute in Cameroon.
Yet Denis quickly moved beyond the familiar narrative of evidence-informed policymaking to confront a more difficult question: not whether think tanks produce good research, but whether anyone truly trusts them.
Trust depends on who is being asked
Denis argued that trust is not a single relationship but a series of overlapping and often conflicting relationships involving governments, funders, and citizens.
Governments, he noted, remain the most consequential audience for think tanks because they possess the authority to implement or reject policy recommendations. Yet governments frequently prefer research that validates existing priorities or provides technical justification for decisions already taken. When think tanks produce genuinely inconvenient findings, the response is often not engagement with the evidence itself, but scrutiny of the institution’s motives, funding, or credibility.
Funders represent a second, very different audience. For many African think tanks, international donors are not simply supporters but essential sources of institutional survival. Denis acknowledged the important role many funders have played in sustaining policy research organisations across the continent. At the same time, however, he raised difficult questions about how success is measured within international development ecosystems. Outputs such as publications, media mentions, and conferences may satisfy donor reporting requirements without necessarily producing meaningful policy change or public legitimacy within local contexts.
This dynamic led to one of the Denis’ sharpest observations: some African think tanks are highly visible internationally while remaining largely unknown in their own countries. “That is not legitimacy,” Denis argued. “It is simply performance.”
As a consequence, the third and most neglected audience, according Denis, is citizens themselves. Many think tanks claim to work in the public interest while maintaining little meaningful connection with the communities whose lives they seek to influence. Citizens often become subjects of research rather than active participants in inquiry and policy design.
Denis used his keynote to stress that these three forms of trust frequently pull institutions in competing directions. What earns credibility with governments may undermine trust with funders. What satisfies donor accountability frameworks may do little to strengthen public legitimacy. There is no simple formula for resolving these tensions. But he insisted that institutions must first acknowledge honestly that the tensions exist.
Borrowed legitimacy and external validation
One of Denis’ central arguments concerned what the speaker described as “borrowed legitimacy”. Many African think tanks, he argued, continue to evaluate themselves using frameworks and standards developed outside their own contexts. International recognition, peer review, or media attention often become proxies for legitimacy.
Denis reflected candidly on Nkafu Policy Institute’s own experience. When research attracted international attention, the institution felt legitimate. When research directly influenced Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health, the institution felt effective.
Those, Denis argued, are not the same thing. This distinction raised broader questions about whose knowledge counts and who determines standards of credibility in policy research.
He also introduced the idea of “legitimacy rent”, whereby institutions receive funding and visibility partly because they satisfy the accountability needs of external actors rather than because they are deeply rooted in local communities. Such legitimacy may appear strong while funding lasts, but Denis questioned what remains once external support disappears. “Borrowed legitimacy,” he warned, “is not durable legitimacy.”
Building legitimacy locally
Moving from diagnosis to solutions, Denis proposed three principles for building more durable and meaningful trust.
The first principle was that legitimacy must be earned locally before it is claimed globally. Denis argued that the most resilient forms of legitimacy emerge through sustained relationships with local communities, civil society organisations, and public institutions. This kind of trust cannot be manufactured through branding or communications strategies. It is built slowly through consistent engagement, accountability, and visibility within the environments where think tanks actually operate.
As an example, Denis highlighted the work of the Imani Center for Policy and Education in Ghana, whose long-term efforts to monitor political promises and government accountability have earned trust across multiple sectors because of their consistent presence and grounded approach.
The second principle focused on independence. Denis challenged the tendency of think tanks to declare themselves independent without ensuring that independence is structurally protected. True independence, he argued, requires governance and funding arrangements that prevent any single government, donor, or political actor from controlling an institution’s agenda or conclusions. In many African political environments, maintaining that independence carries significant risks. Nevertheless, he argued that independence must be demonstrated repeatedly through institutional practice rather than asserted rhetorically.
The third principle is centred on community trust. Trust, Denis insisted, cannot simply be claimed on behalf of citizens. It must be earned directly from the people affected by policy interventions.
Listening before designing solutions
Denis closed with a focus on one of Nkafu Policy Institute’s own institutional failures. The organisation had launched a project encouraging informal market traders — predominantly women — to formalise their businesses in order to gain access to credit, legal protections, and business support. From a conventional development perspective, the intervention appeared entirely logical and evidence-based. Yet the project failed because it misunderstood how the women themselves understood the problem.
Through conversations with the traders, Nkafu Policy Institute realised that many were fully aware of the potential benefits of formalisation. Their reluctance stemmed not from ignorance but from deep mistrust of government institutions. Formalisation exposed them to unpredictable taxation, arbitrary payments, and increased vulnerability to state authorities. In contrast, the informal systems they had built over time — while imperfect — felt predictable, understandable, and manageable.
Denis described this experience as a turning point. The institution had designed a technically correct solution without fully understanding the realities, fears, and calculations shaping people’s decisions.