Municipal Finance: Innovation and Collaboration

Municipalities around the world are facing the dilemma of the need for a strong fiscal base to create and maintain infrastructure and services amidst pressure to lower taxes to attract foreign and domestic investment. Financial mismanagement greatly affects the ability of local authorities to sustain the provision of municipal infrastructure and services to their constituents. Despite these constraints, there are many innovations, reforms, and partnership arrangements with the private sector and civil society to remedy this.

Facilitator:

• Anwar Versi, Editor, African Business, United Kingdom

Commentators to include:

• Jacqueline E. Schafer, Assistant Administrator, Bureau of Economic Growth and Trade, USAID, Government of the United States of America
• Lamine Mbassa, Director of Economic and Financial Affairs, Communauté Urbaine de Douala (CUD), Cameroon
• Jawaid Akhtar, Managing Director, Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation, India
• Fernando Damata Pimentel, Mayor of Belo Horizonte, Brazil
• Katherine Sierra, Vice President and Network Head, Infrastructure, World Bank, USA