Technical Advisory Services

The UNCDF Local Governance Unit (LGU) offers Technical Advisory Services for the promotion of decentralization and good local governance. LGU provides its technical advisory services to UN agencies and other multi- and bi-lateral institutions as well as to Governments. The services are provided within the framework of the following policy objectives:

• Strengthening the capacities of local governments in planning, budgeting and implementing basic infrastructure and service delivery in a participatory, efficient, and pro-poor manner, and to interact with communities, civil society organizations and the private sector, in order to:
  1. promote local economic development;
  2. improve local delivery of infrastructure and services
  3. formulate comprehensive action plans to secure local livelihoods & improve decentralized management of natural resources.

• Supporting central governments to formulate policies promoting administrative, political and fiscal decentralization, to foster enabling legal and administrative environments, and to strengthen local economic development.
• Empowering the organizations of local civil society, particularly women's associations.

LGU's technical advisory services are carried out in close collaboration with the UNDP Bureau for Development Policy as well as with UNDP's Sub-regional Resource Facilities (SURFs), in line with the Memorandum of Understanding between UNCDF/LGU and UNDP/BDP. In addition, LGU uses the services of affiliated specialist consultants and institutions.

Recent Assignments

Since 2002, LGU has provided technical services to many organizations around the world, including the following:

• Saudi Arabia: to the City of Riyadh to develop options for municipal reform and governance of the Riyadh metropolitan area.
• Yemen: to UNDP for the formulation and implementation of the 'Decentralization & Local Development Support Project'
• Yemen: to the FAO/Investment Center and the World Bank for a social assessment of the small-scale fisheries
• Mozambique: to UNDP, governance and decentralization programme.
• Armenia: to UNDP's, governance and decentralization programme.
• Tanzania: to UNDP, support to training of regional local governments.
• Rwanda: to the Belgian Technical Cooperation for the formulation a new local development project in the Kigali-Ngali Province
• Niger: to the Government of Niger, for the formulation and technical backstopping to the new World-Bank-funded Community-driven Development programme
• Jordan: to the World Bank ICT training programme.
• Afghanistan: to the UNDP & World Bank, fact-finding mission for a "Local Governance Support & Community Empowerment Programme",
• Angola: to the UNDP/BCPR, formulation of the "Pilot Reintegration & Recovery Programme",
• Bangladesh: to UNDESA/UNDP for the "Promotion of Local Governance & Fiscal Decentralization Policy Reform",
• Uganda: to the Donor Group on Decentralization, for the World Bank-funded "Local Government Development Project", phase 2,
• Ukraine: to the UNDP/RBEC, external monitoring of "Crimea Integration & Development Programme".

Profile of LGU Technical Advisers

Angelo BONFIGLIOLI, Senior Technical Adviser
Angelo Bonfiglioli is a rural sociologist/social anthropologist who has considerable experience in community development, community-based natural resource management, local governance, socio-economic research on agro-pastoral & pastoral production systems, and poverty analysis & programmes. He has worked in long-term jobs and as a consultant in West Africa, Horn of Africa, and the Middle East. He is fluent in Italian, French, English, and Fulani of West Africa. Ph D: Social anthropology, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

Christian FOURNIER, Regional Technical Adviser, based in Senegal
Christian Fournier is an urban planner, with particular interest in fiscal decentralization, urban planning, and municipal management. He has wide experience in project management and land use development. He has worked in West Africa and is fluent in French. MA: Project management, University of Québec, Canada Bachelor: Urban planning, University of Québec, Canada

Ronald McGILL, Senior Technical Adviser
Ronald McGill is an institutional development specialist, with significant experience in urban management and town planning. He has worked extensively in development planning and performance budgeting processes, organization analysis and reform, as well as in change management through client-based training, in both local and central government. His experience is mainly in Eastern / Southern Africa and UK but also in Asia and the former Soviet Union. BSc: Town planning, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland. MBA: Business management, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland. PhD: Institutional development, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland.

Leonardo ROMEO, Senior Technical Adviser
Leonardo Romeo is an urban & regional planner and civil engineer. His technical expertise is in the fields of local government strategic planning, capital programming and budgeting, as well as in the design, appraisal and management of local infrastructure projects. In the last 10 years he has also worked to develop instruments of local government financing in the frame of fiscal decentralization reforms. He has worked in a number of countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as well as Eastern Europe. He is fluent in Italian, English, French, and Spanish. MSc: Urban/Regional Planning, Instituto Universitario d'Architettura, Venice, Italy MSc: Civil engineering, Columbia University, New York, USA

Stefan RUMMEL-SHAPIRO, Senior Technical Adviser
Stefan Rummel-Shapiro is an agricultural engineer and M&E specialist. He has broad experience in the area of economic & rural development. His expertise is the development & implementation of "Results-based Management" tools at project & corporate level, management information systems for Local Governance, and impact assessments. Fluent in German, English and French, he has worked for more than 15 years as project member & free-lance consultant in West Africa and Asia. MA: Agriculture with specialization in agricultural economics/animal husbandry, CA-University Kiel, Germany PhD: Development of performance monitoring systems, CA-University, Kiel, Germany

Roger SHOTTON, Senior Technical Adviser
Roger Shotton is a specialist in development economics, public finance, and political sociology. His principal expertise is in designing programmes to support decentralised financing, planning, delivery and management of basic infrastructure and services; in assessment and development of local government institutional capacities; and in the analysis and reform of the decentralisation policy framework. He has also worked on natural resource management, and agricultural and informal sector development. Fluent in English, French and Italian, he has worked in a large number of African and Asian countries. BA : Philosophy, politics and economics, Oxford University, UK Diploma : Applied and quantitative economics, Economics Institute, Ancona, Italy MA : Development economics, University of East Anglia, UK

Kadmiel WEKWETE, Senior Technical Adviser & Director of LGU
Kadmiel Wekwete is an urban and regional planner, specializing in institutional and development management. He has research and practical experience in development planning, institutional development, and management, as well as on training and research/action. He has worked in a number of African countries in Southern & Eastern Africa as well in Asia. He is fluent in English and several African languages. MA: Regional & urban planning, University of Nottingham, UK PhD: Regional & urban planning, University of London, UK

Complementing its technical advisors, LGU has a team of experienced programme managers who are able to provide further support to the programmes requiring long-term backstopping, supervision and management.

For more information on UNCDF / LGU Technical Advisory Services:

Technical Support
Contact person:
Mr. Kadmiel Wekwete
Director, UNCDF Local Governance Unit
tel: (+1 212) 906-6116
fax: (+1 212) 906-6479
email: kadmiel.wekwete@undp.org