Duke program prepares professionals to lead fiscal decentralization reforms

A cohort of government officials and development practitioners from Kenya, Ghana, Zambia, Rwanda, Somalia and Nepal traveled to Duke University to complete the Program on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management (PFD), hosted by the Duke Center for International Development (DCID) in the Sanford School of Public Policy.

Led by Professor of the Practice Emeritus Roy Kelly, the executive education program provided a deep understanding of fiscal decentralization and how it can improve service delivery, economic governance and citizen participation. Throughout the three-week program, which covered fiscal and administrative decentralization, intergovernmental transfers, local revenue systems, and fiscal planning and management, participants developed the knowledge and skills they will need to lead decentralization policy reforms in their countries.

Complementing the classes were field visits to local government offices, where the cohort learned best practices in local governance, financial management and revenue mobilization from government practitioners.

The visits included:

• Durham County Tax Administration – Dwane Brinson, assistant county manager - community safety; and Keyar Doyle, Durham County tax administrator; discussed the role of property tax policy and administration, as well as Durham County’s experience with mobilizing property tax revenues. 
• Town of Cary – Allison Hutchins, director of learning and organizational development; Kimberly Branch, finance director; Liam Brailey, financial strategy analyst; and Neal Duncan, fellow; spoke about the Town of Cary’s governance and management experience and its interaction with community outreach and citizen participation.
• Town of Hillsborough – Mayor Mark Bell; Eric Peterson, town manager; and Jen Della Valle, administration services director; focused on the strategic performance management system and ways to interact with citizens and improve the delivery of local level services. 

“These experiences provided a deep dive into the operations of local governments in the United States,” shared participant Lushomo Sampa, who is a junior advisor at GIZ in Zambia. “A key takeaway for me was observing how political influence is minimized in local authority operations, with decisions being driven by factual data and long-term planning yet allowing for flexibility when needed.”

Before completing the program, participants, working in groups, applied what they learned to the following projects: 

• Monitoring Decentralization Reforms: Lessons from Ghana, Zambia and Kenya
• Enhancing Local Own Source Revenues: Examples from Zambia, Somalia and Ghana
• Improving Property Tax Collections:  Insights from Rwanda, Nepal and Zambia

Each group presented key issues, lessons and recommendations, while also providing insights from their country’s experiences.

Teaching in the program were Roy Kelly; professor of the practice emeritus and director of the Program on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management; Jamie Boex, executive director of Local Public Sector Alliance, senior fellow at DCID and fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration; Matthew Glasser, fellow of the South African Chair in Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability at North-West University Faculty of Law and director for municipal law and finance at the Centre for Urban Law and Finance in Africa; Karen Mills, consultant and former chief financial officer for the Town of Cary; Bill Rivenbark, professor of public administration and government at University of North Carolina’s School of Government; Gangadhar P. Shukla, professor of the practice emeritus and co-director of the Tax Analysis and Revenue Forecasting program at Duke; and Ade Putra, tax policy expert with the Indonesian Tax Administration.

"I learned more than I expected or ever imagined," reflected participant Schofield Ochieng Ouma, a financial management specialist with the Federal Government of Somalia. "Great skills, in-depth knowledge and humanity (zeal to share knowledge) exhibited by the teaching professors and the team we interacted with converged to deliver the most memorable course I have ever attended."

The next Program on Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Financial Management will be held at Duke in summer 2025.