Background
Africa is a major recipient of development funding, which can provide a significant boost in assisting governments with tackling poverty, improving living conditions, creating jobs and improving the infrastructure of local government services. Many of these services, such as housing, education, water and sanitation, are the responsibility of local government in most African countries. However, local government itself is not always identified in development funding strategies and national governments are sometimes reluctant to devolve funding that is channelled through them.
Trying to access funding directly can be confusing and time-consuming for local governments and development agencies may not have the capacity to deal with individual applications from a large number of local governments.
This unique conference, Access to Development Funding for Local Government in Africa, is a first of its kind and will highlight the role of local government in poverty reduction and provide practical help and information for local governments in Africa on how agencies work and set their priorities and how they can engage with them. It will look at the need for local government involvement in planning poverty reduction strategies and linking with donor priorities and agree a partnership for the future.