Driving Impact: Professor Wilson Prichard Provides Advisory Support to African Mayoral Leadership Initiative

At the end of January, Professor Wilson Prichard, Chair of LoGRI, travelled to Cape Town, South Africa and Nairobi, Kenya to support a group of African mayors in raising more revenues to support expanded service delivery and infrastructure development within their cities.

The trip was part of an emerging partnership between LoGRI and the African Mayoral Leadership Initiative (AMALI), a unique global program based at the University of Cape Town which provides leadership training, mentorship, and strategic support to a cohort of 12-20 ambitious African Mayors to support the achievement of their transformative visions for their cities.

During the first part of the trip, Professor Prichard travelled to the University of Cape Town to participated in the annual AMALI Forum. During the program each of the mayors works with AMALI mentors – including former ministers, mayors and international leaders from across the continent – to develop strategic plans for transformative change within their cities. The AMALI program then provides ongoing engagement and support to those mayors as they seek to deliver those transformative visions.

As part of the program Professor Prichard acted as one of the AMALI mentors, while also delivering a keynote address on the importance of, and strategies for, strengthening local government revenue raising to support sustainable development. Among others, he engaged in in-depth discussions about potential reform strategies with mayors and governors from Mombasa (Kenya), Monrovia (Liberia), Kanifing (Gambia), and Harare (Zimbabwe).

Following the AMALI Forum Professor Prichard travelled with the AMALI program to Nairobi, to participate in a cabinet workshop hosted by the Governor of the Nairobi City Council (NCC), Sakaja Johnson. The goal of the workshop was to develop detailed operational plans to advance development in Nairobi. Professor Prichard worked with the leadership of the Nairobi County Ministry of Finance and Revenue Department to support the development of a plan to more than double local revenue raising in order to finance key local priorities, including school feeding programs, an early childhood development initiative, and the revitalization of Nairobi’s rivers. Through those discussions, the Nairobi City Council agreed for LoGRI – with support from AMALI – to provide ongoing support to the city in implementing their new revenue raising agenda.

Professor Prichard’s recent travels marked an important step forward in the emerging relationship between LoGRI and the AMALI program. This decision by the NCC to bring LoGRI onboard as an advisory partner represents a new opportunity for LoGRI to help inform the design and development of local revenue mobilization plans, effectively translating research into action.

More information on Professor Prichard’s collaboration with the AMALI program can be found here.