OHK recently completed an intensive week of consultations in South Africa, inaugurating a platform of multi-disciplinary expertise in governmental capital improvement programming. Expanding an already strong network of experts in South Africa, OHK established coordination mechanisms for specialist knowledge across the capital improvement value chain, ranging from national development and infrastructure planning, to fundraising and donor coordination, capital investment decision support tools, and project management and expenditure monitoring. OHK supports governments in planning and executing capital improvement programs, and our platform is a unique tool to quickly mobilize and deploy best-practice expertise for our clients around the world.
“South Africa affords incredibly valuable insight into nearly every facet of governmental capital expenditure programming,” noted OHK’s Consulting Partner Adam Kucharski, who led the consultations. “After the transition to majority rule in 1994, South Africa faced massive infrastructure backlogs, constrained financial resources, and underdeveloped municipal capacities. Quite rapidly, the government created far-reaching systems for optimizing capital improvements. The challenges that these systems seek to address resonate with many of the issues facing transitional countries where OHK works.”
The phrase “Batho Pele”, a Sotho expression meaning “People First,” reflects the South African focus on improved efficiency and accountability in the provision of public goods like infrastructure and capital upgrading. Photo © OHK Consultants
OHK’s consultations were wide ranging. The South African National Treasury’s International Development Cooperation office shared insights into creating robust systems for coordinating incoming development assistance funds across an entire national portfolio of capital improvement projects. On the implementation side of the value chain, the Johannesburg Development Agency discussed with OHK its role as an implementer of critical urban infrastructure creation in the inner city of Johannesburg, a district that is the economic heart of South Africa but has struggled to stabilize quality of life for its residents. Other consultations yielded similarly valuable modules to the platform, expanding its reach to include advanced technical and simulation tools for capital allocation decisions.
Joziburg Lane, an experiment in urban regeneration in south-central Johannesburg, is the latest attraction to emerge from 15 years of strategic capital improvements and upgrades to the city fabric. Photo © OHK Consultants
Kucharski added, “Our collaborative platform will allow us to quickly mobilize South-to-South expertise to support our government clients in the Middle East. Whether it’s strengthening the ability of governments to strategize and monitor incoming development aid for capital projects, or creating new agencies to manage capital improvement to high-value urban cores, the platform is a way of taking best practices from South Africa and activating the experts that designed and ran these institutions first hand. In gathering change-makers, we are going way beyond simple case studies.”
For more information about OHK’s government services and capital investment advisory, contact us.