When Kenya’s Jacob K. Muimi began developing digital systems for public financial management, the technical questions were familiar: What should the system do? How should it work? How could processes be automated?
Then came a different set of questions. What do users need? What are they afraid of? Who will champion the system? And how do you persuade people to change the way they work?
Muimi, head of ICT at the Public Financial Management Reform Secretariat in Kenya’s National Treasury, said those questions captured a shift from thinking like a system developer to thinking like a leader.
He shared his experience during a webinar convened by the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) on its Leadership Excellence in Africa’s Public Sector (LEAPS) program on Thursday.
Officials from several African countries reflected on what happens when technical expertise is paired with leadership skills and applied to real public-sector reforms.
“Systems do not reform themselves. Budgets do not implement themselves. Digital platforms do not transform institutions by themselves,” ACBF Executive Secretary Mamadou Biteye said. “People do.”
The argument comes at a consequential moment for African governments. Fiscal pressures, declining external support, demands for better services and increasingly complex reforms are forcing public institutions to deliver more, often with fewer resources.
Adil Ababou, senior program officer at the Gates Foundation, which supports LEAPS, said public financial management reforms have traditionally concentrated on technical capacity, including better budgeting, administration, digital systems and expenditure management.
But technical skills alone cannot answer questions such as how to build consensus around difficult reforms, overcome resistance, work across institutional boundaries or sustain momentum when politics become challenging.
“People lead reforms,” Ababou said.
Rodolphe Bance, ACBF’s head of the Economic and Social Governance Unit, said the foundation’s research has identified leadership as a major capacity gap in Africa for implementing policy and reform.
A technically skilled auditor, debt manager or ICT expert, in other words, is not automatically equipped to lead an institution.
LEAPS was designed to bridge that divide.
The original six-month program targeted senior public financial management officials and combined online learning with case studies, technical seminars, 360-degree assessments, coaching and mentorship.
Bance said 79 officials completed the first cohort and 88 completed the second, while 116 are participating in the third. The program has reached participants from Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, The Gambia and Zimbabwe, as well as the African Union.
Those numbers, however, tell only part of the story because the real test begins when officials return to their ministries, agencies and teams.
When leadership leaves the classroom
In Kenya, Muimi said LEAPS changed how his team approaches digital transformation.
Instead of beginning with technology, the team increasingly starts with people by listening to users, understanding their fears and pain points, examining business processes and identifying internal champions before deploying systems.
“It has to be people-centered development,” Muimi said.
That lesson is significant as African governments accelerate digitalization. A platform can be technically impressive and still fail if the people expected to use it resist, misunderstand or feel excluded from the change.
Zimbabwe provided another example. Thomson Masvaure, deputy accountant general, described reforms that require extensive coordination across government institutions, including the country’s transition in public-sector accounting.
Such reforms require more than accounting knowledge, he said. They demand stakeholder coordination, change management and teams capable of working across institutional boundaries. Coaching under LEAPS provided practical lessons that helped officials identify team strengths, close skills gaps and bring managers together.
In Ghana, Dr. Birago Antwi-Ajay of the Ghana Revenue Authority placed the challenge within a wider African reality: Dwindling external support is increasing pressure on countries to mobilize more domestic revenue.
But collecting more revenue cannot simply mean tougher enforcement.
“The human factor would always be paramount,” Antwi-Ajay said.
She argued that tax administrations need a more people-centered approach, making compliance easier for taxpayers while coaching officials to engage citizens differently.
Côte d’Ivoire’s Chantal Irma Ackah, an official in the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Budget, described collaboration as a form of institutional resilience when governments face fiscal pressure and budget constraints.
Participatory leadership, delegation and strategic communication can give teams greater ownership of reforms, reduce institutional inertia and improve coordination, she said. She cited efforts to improve citizen-oriented communication, including simplified reports for citizens and Parliament.
Her broader point was that leadership learned by one person can spread. Individual leadership can become a catalyst for institutional transformation as new practices move through teams and eventually into the wider governance system.
That diffusion is what Sam Bwaya, the LEAPS head coach, sees coaching trying to unlock.
The program uses 360-degree assessments and personal development plans to help senior officials understand how others experience their leadership. Coaching then adds reflection and accountability.
One question coaches repeatedly ask, Bwaya said, is: “What assumptions have you made?”
LEAPS makes a new leap
The original LEAPS model focused heavily on public financial management in selected countries. ACBF is now taking lessons from that pilot and expanding them through a broader executive program available to public-sector officials across Africa.
Bakary Diallo, director of ACBF’s Ubora Academy, announced during the webinar that the new LEAPS Executive Program will run for four months and be delivered online.
According to Diallo, LEAPS is moving beyond its original PFM focus to serve current and emerging leaders across the public sector, including officials managing teams, departments, programs and projects, implementing policies or preparing for senior leadership responsibilities.
The program has five modules covering African leadership paradigms, self-awareness and emotional intelligence, high-performing and inclusive teams, strategic organizational change, and stakeholder engagement and systemic transformation.
The new format retains important elements of the original model, including self-paced learning, facilitated sessions, coaching and mentoring, technical seminars, peer exchange and workplace application. It will be offered in English and French.
Biteye said expansion also raises a bigger challenge: Leadership development cannot remain an opportunity for isolated individuals.
Graduates should become mentors, reform champions and catalysts for changing institutional culture, he said. Alumni networks need strengthening, coaching and mentorship should become embedded within government institutions, and leadership outcomes should be tracked over time.
Ababou said, LEAPS ultimately should not be judged by how many officials complete its modules, but by whether the gains become embedded in teams and institutions.
Mohamed Salat Osman, a program officer at ACBF and moderator of the webinar, repeatedly returned the discussion to that institutional question, asking participants how leadership lessons were translating into digital reform, domestic revenue mobilization, accountability and collaboration.
Bance closed the session by setting an ambition beyond improving the management styles of a few hundred officials. ACBF wants to create a critical mass of African leaders capable of driving transformation across institutions and countries.
That may ultimately be LEAPS’ biggest test.
