Ms Harriet Naitore holds a M.Sc. in Public Policy and Management from the University of London and a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting Option) from the University of Nairobi. She is a Director at AKC Development Consulting Limited. Prior to this, she was a Senior Manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd based in the Dar es Salaam office, where she was responsible for advisory services in the local government sector. She has over 30 years’ experience in Public Financial Management both as a practitioner during her 10 years tenure as Chief Finance Officer in two Local Governments in Kenya and as public sector management consultant. Harriet has particularly extensive experience in decentralization policies that link good governance strategies to local government decision making and decentralized service delivery mechanisms.

In 2010, she was appointed a member of the National Task Force on Devolved Government established by the government of Kenya under the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government to help think through the implementation of the devolution process and propose a policy framework, legislation and other mechanisms to facilitate the implementation of the devolved system of government as envisaged in the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

She has accumulated a wealth of experience in decentralization and intergovernmental fiscal transfer systems in Eastern and Central Africa, including working with the local government reform programmes in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda Zambia, South Sudan and Somalia. She has also been involved in the review of financial management systems, assessment of financial management performance in local governments, design of fiscal decentralization programmes, preparation of financial management guidelines/operational manuals, Planning and budgeting guidelines, development of financial management training materials and training of trainers.