Tel: (021) 959 2950
Email: dmpowell10@gmail.com

Mr Powell has 16 years professional experience in constitution-making and state-building in South Africa and the African region. He served in the South African government from 1996-2009, as a Deputy Director-General, executive manager and policy advisor in the Ministry of Provincial and Local Government. He was the head of the Research Department at the Constitutional Assembly during the two-year process to negotiate and draft a democratic Constitution for South Africa. For 13 years he had a lead responsibility in the establishment of the system of intergovernmental relations and local government in South Africa. He was lead consultant to the Forum of Federations, an international NGO supporting the Presidency of Southern Sudan to establish the institutions for decentralized government, and is currently contracted by the Forum to write a chapter on South Africa for a book on comparative intergovernmental relations.

Among the highlights of Mr Powell’s recent work are the following: In 2009, he served as a technical adviser to the South African government to assist with the development of a national intervention strategy for local government.  From 2007 to 2009, he led the process to review government’s White Paper on local government and formulate a White Paper on provincial government. He steered the process to review the first term of democratic local government in South Africa (2000-2005) and co-authored national government’s current strategic framework for local government (2006-2011). Between 2002 and 2005, he led the process to enact national legislation on intergovernmental relations, and worked with the Ministry of Finance to draft legislation to amend the Constitution to pave the way for a regulatory regime for municipal borrowing and intervention.

Mr Powell was formerly a lecturer in commercial law in the Law Faculty at the University of Cape Town, worked for a non-governmental organisation in the 1980’s. He is the recipient of several awards and scholarships, writes regularly for the print media in South Africa, and has authored several peer-reviewed publications.