Session V: Situational Briefing & Leadership and the Politics of Change

Introduction

Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies, and former Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provided a situational briefing on the state of COVID-19 in Latin America and Africa and discussed some key actions mayors can take to respond to COVID-19 in their cities.

Farayi Chipungu, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, led a session on how to distinguish between technical and adaptive work, and between leadership and authority. Professor Chipungu provided city leaders with tools to build capacity in order to exercise leadership more often. Rawi Abdelal, Harvard Business School Professor and faculty co-chair of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, and Jennifer Musisi, the former executive director of Kampala, Uganda, and City Leader in Residence at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative moderated the session.