Africa Local Government Action Forum

The Africa Local Government Action Forum (ALGAF)

Timeframe: 2000 - ongoing

Partners:

             Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa,
             World Bank Institute,
             Global Distance Learning Network in seven countries namely, Ethiopia, 
             Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe
             Global Distance Learning Centre in Washington.

The Africa Local Government Action Forum is an interactive initiative, which was launched in August 2000 following the Africities Summit held in Windhoek, Namibia in May 2000. ALGAF is meant to provide an accessible and low cost platform for structured dialogue on key issues that impact on the performance of local governments.

The objectives of ALGAF are to:

•    Provide an accessible and low cost platform for structured dialogue on key
      issues of financing local authorities, good governance, services delivery, and
      participation, local government responses to HIV / AIDS, the impact of peace
      and security in local governance, local economic development, and
      information and communication technology and the implication for poverty
      reduction in Africa.
•    Facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences between policy makers,
      implementers and managers of poverty programmes and projects on
      practical ways of designing and mainstreaming poverty reduction in
      expenditure processes.
•    Strengthen linkages between expenditure management and poverty
      reduction.
•    Increase awareness of gender issues in the design of fiscal decentralization
      and poverty reduction policies and programs.
•    Develop support networks for policy formulation, implementation and
      evaluation on fiscal relation and poverty reduction
 
Delivery Strategy
 
ALGAF is delivered through videoconferencing every 1st Friday of each month. The use of ICT in the form of videoconferencing has made it possible for all the seven participating African countries to link together and share experiences through live discussions. During ALGAF sessions identified experts give keynote presentations followed by lengthy discussions whereby participants are given the chance to ask questions and share experiences.
 
ALGAF Presentations
 
ALGAF presentations are delivered and guided by high level regional and international resource persons who are specialists and practitioners in the local government field. They are made on a rotative basis with each participating country being given a chance to identify a presenter. To ensure that the presentations meet the needs of the participants a review and planning meeting which brings together the organisers, country co-ordinators, and some participants is held at the end of each Phase. This together with evaluation forms completed by participants at the end of each Phase helps to ensure that the needs of the beneficiaries are addressed.
 
Target Audience and Levels of Participation
 
The participants for ALGAF are drawn from policy makes; managers of poverty programmes and projects from both government and NGOs, local authority officials, training institutions, the private sector, civic organisations and the media.