CLGF staff

Lucy is Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, having worked for the organisation since 1999. She is responsible for policy, which contributes to the strategic direction of the organisation, and takes a leading role in the development and management of CLGF’s capacity building projects. Her specific areas of expertise are decentralisation, intergovernmental frameworks, local economic development, local government finance and inclusive local government. She is responsible for managing the work of CLGF’s programme and relationship-building and advocacy work with members and partners across the Commonwealth. She directs the work of CLGF’s regional offices in Fiji, South Africa, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago. She has also been pivotal in the design and management of CLGF’s biennial Commonwealth Local Government conferences.
 
Before CLGF, Lucy worked for the Local Government International Bureau (the international section of the Local Government Association for England and Wales) where she was responsible for the day-to-day management of a UK, government-funded programme of support to local authorities in Central and Eastern Europe. She also worked for a number of years in the planning and economic development department of a local authority, before which she was living and working overseas. She has a BA in German and Politics from the University of Bradford.

Claire is a core member of the CLGF Programmes Team developing funding proposals, interfacing with donors and partners and supporting CLGF projects at the regional and country level including design, development and delivery with an emphasis on monitoring and evaluation. She currently coordinates CLGF’s DFID funded programme Reducing poverty through local economic development (LED) in the Commonwealth working in Southern Africa, West Africa and South Asia at the regional, country and local level; and the EU funded project Empowering Local Authorities in partner countries for enhanced governance and more effective development outcomes working in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific on localising the SDGs; and CLGF EU funded project Strengthening the Associations of Local Governments and their Members for Enhanced Governance and Effective Development Outcomes in Pakistan. She is also a member of the team managing the Commonwealth Women in Local Government Network (ComWLG) working to support work in local politics and decision making, as well as supporting CLGF’s Strategic Partnership with the European Union, Cities Alliance and PLATFORMA among other partners. She has been CLGF's technical representative on the EU Policy Forum for Development (PFD) since 2017.

Prior to joining CLGF she worked as a Programme Officer with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) in Barcelona on the GOLD project (Global Observatory of Local Democracy and Decentralisation) and during her time with the team produced multi-region reports on local government finance and local government service provision. She has a Masters degree in urban planning and a BA in communications.