Thierry Godefroy Lobaka, a master’s degree holder in Economic Policy Management is a Statistician and Economist. His public service tenure has included ten years at the Directorate General of Economy and Development Planning at the Ministry of Planning, Economy and International Cooperation of the Central African Republic. And since 2015, he has been domiciled at the Ministry of Finance and Budget where he currently mans the post of Head of Service for the Preparation of Finance Laws in the Directorate General of Budget.
In 2018, the Central African Republic participated in CABRI’s Building Public Finance Capabilities Programme. The Programme seeks to support teams of government officials to tackle locally nominated problems using the PDIA, or problem-driven and iterative adaptation approach. Through this approach, teams address the real causes of the problem identified and allow for experimentation and learning as progress is made.
Within a context of post conflict reconstruction, a team of officials from the Central African Republic sought to tackle the salient issue of the low rate of execution of the investment budget. The data showed that in critical social sectors such as health, the rates were at alarming rate – the health budget was at a mere 1%. The team strategically harnessed this data to build a compelling narrative that would showcase to important stakeholders such as the Minister and key officials in Sectorial Ministries that this was indeed a real problem. And this allowed the team to incrementally build the level of support required to adequately intervene.
Through Thierry’s narration, we gain insight into the fundamental issues driving the problem and how the team was able to co-produce workable solutions.
NOTE: CABRI is seeking to document further PFM leadership stories across Africa, please share your proposal with Awa Touray (Awa.Touray@cabri-sbo.org)
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