This post is written by João Vitor Domingues, General Coordinator of Training for Senior Executives; Isadora Lacava, Coordinator of the Programme Leading for the Development; and Rodrigo Torres, Director of Executive Education, all three from the National School of Public Administration (Enap).

  • The problem: Attracting and engaging mayors in training programmes are challenging actions for any institution willing to bet on this journey.

  • Why it matters: The benefits for local communities can be seen when their leaders and decision-makers learn different approaches to implement better public policies.

  • The solution: These are five lessons on learning strategies for mayors based on the experience of the Programme Leading for the Development.

Training mayors is not an easy task. They work daily in a time-constrained environment, struggling to manage all tasks and challenges inherent to a city’s life. Therefore, they are eager for flexible learning opportunities, in which they can exchange pains and experiences with peers and access valuable information on practical issues they face in their day-to-day work. Some are even willing to get in touch with new trends and learning experiences. If you are implementing training strategies for mayors, in this article, you’ll find five lessons here on learning strategies for local leadership development.

1. You need local level partners

The cities of a continental-sized country like Brazil reflect its diversity, in terms of population distribution, economic capacity and maturity of social participation. The same happens with their leaders: they have different profiles, experiences and knowledge in public management. For this reason, the biggest challenge you’ll face is to get mayors on board in your training programmes. They are a very hard-to-reach audience. If you work in a training or public institution and want to develop programmes for mayors, make sure to give this special attention. A very important tip on this matter is bringing in partners at the local level. When mayors see partners who communicate with them on a daily basis and know the specifics of their local challenges, they tend to believe more in the programme and what it can offer.

2. Simple communication is crucial

Easy-to-understand communication is essential before, during and after the learning experience with mayors. They normally do not use formal communication channels such as email for quick responses. It is important to have a clear notion of the best ways of reaching them properly. The syllabus is also an important way to demonstrate that the institution understands the language of the target audience. One great tip is asking questions that can help them with their daily challenges, like "How can I make my city enter the digital world? Why should my city be sustainable?"

3. Create spaces for networking within and beyond class

By essence, political agents have the necessity of finding new alliances where they go. They have high-level skills in political articulation. For this reason, it is important to design training programmes that intentionally have spaces for networking among mayors and other political agents and bring key institutions on board during the programme. Don’t fill your schedule with a six-to-eight hour lecture, otherwise they will avoid it. Connections are essential for mayors, so try to provide them with these moments.

4. Let them share their pains and gains

Mayors decide whether or not to participate in a programme not only because they want to hear what you have been preparing for them, but also to show who they are and what they want to solve. Putting 50 mayors in a classroom is a challenge because everyone wants to somehow show their gains. At the same time, they realise during the process that many of the challenges they face daily are shared by other mayors. So, invest in moments where they can share their gains and pains, because new solutions and partnerships can appear when common challenges and goals are identified.

5. You will not have all the answers, but you can help them find

Mayors have to deal with a number of issues in their cities and they’re always searching for ways to try and need to solve them. A training institution does not have all the answers for specific problems they face, but it is important to know how to address them. Be sure to build up a diversified, multidisciplinary and cohesive team in which every member has a clear pre-defined role that complements the rest. The variety of activities you’ll need to engage in order to reach your final goals is something that needs to be taken care of wisely and efficiently, otherwise you may find huge bumps in the way. Also, try and bring local level partners, third sector entities, federal government agencies and international organisations on board to learn from their previous experiences and to share these activities with you.

A brief history of the Programme Leading for the Development

After we won the Apolitical’s Award Global Public Service Team of the Year 2021 in the category of Community Innovators, institutions and people who work with local leaders around the world have approached us to know more on how we trained this challenging audience.

The Programme Leading for the Development aims to train senior leaders from 27 Brazilian states and 5,570 existing municipalities in the country. Through this innovative training, the Programme seeks to increase the capacity of these public entities to implement better public policies and promote more efficient public management.

Over the 18 months of the Programme's implementation, 900 local leaders have been trained in total, from more than 300 different municipalities, reaching all Brazilian states. 208 mayors and deputy mayors attended. If we add up the population of the attended cities, we have a population reach of 16 million citizens.

The Programme has the support of 20 different institutions, including ministries of the Brazilian Federal Government, international organisations, third sector entities and municipal associations. This set guaranteed effective governance of the Programme, counting not only on funders, but also on technical support based on the vocation and experience of each partner.

Altogether, the Programme had more than 125 professors and trainers, with different characteristics and trajectories. The level of participants’ satisfaction with the program has been extremely high. The overall average evaluation for all courses was 9.5 (out of 10).

In addition, the evaluation of the participants demonstrates the importance that the Programme has had not only for the public manager, but mainly for the local community, which benefits from the improvement of the offered public services.

The team involved in the Programme was largely responsible for the successful implementation of this pioneering project, even in an absolutely adverse context such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

The innovative character of the action of this team is evidenced not only by the pioneering spirit and territorial reach of the Programme, but also by its ability to constantly improve the work process based on feedback from the participants.

Throughout the process, there was a lot of learning. Enap, which is the Brazilian School of Government of the Federal Public Administration, became more intimately aware of the challenges faced by states and municipalities for a better implementation of public management. The contents were adapted to become more in line with the reality of the local managers and their communities.

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