On 10 September, we met with Dr Kawakita Hirofumi, Senior Advisor (Public Administration / Public Financial Management) at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Dr Hirofumi is leading a Study on DX and GovTech in South Africa, which explores how development partners can provide support while also learning themselves a theme that resonates strongly with CABRI’s Digital PFM journey.

The meeting was an opportunity to reflect on the 2024 International Conference on Public Finance in the Digital Era, which was held in collaboration with ODI Global. This conference led to the documentation of Digital PFM reform stories in Rwanda, Liberia, and Kenya. These stories showed how home grown solutions and digital tools piloted in one country were adopted and adapted in others.

During the meeting, we also discussed the regional engagement in Rwanda earlier this year, where shared learning of these reform stories reinforced how innovation is being embedded at different levels and across diverse contexts.

During the exchange, five challenges to digital transformation were identified: institutional hurdles, technological gaps, infrastructural disparities, organisational resistance, and human resource constraints.

Countries are at different stages of technology adoption, but the direction is positive reforms are being embraced, scaled, and contextualised.

This conversation with JICA reinforced that peer-learning and collaboration across Africa are key to strengthening the use of digital systems, promoting accountability, and ensuring the efficient use of public finance resources.

Digital PFM is cross-cutting across sectors health, education, agriculture, and social protection making collaboration among countries, partners, and peers essential to accelerate adoption, embed innovation at different levels, and ensure reforms deliver impact where it matters most.