Patrick Silili Adolwa
Brief Biodata for Patrick Silili Adolwa; Planner and Urban Specialist.
Patrick Silili Adolwa, HSC, has over 35 years’ experience in urban planning and development. He is a Corporate member of the Architectural Association of Kenya, the Kenya Institute of Planners and an Associate of the Kenya Institute of Management. He is also a registered Town Planner and Lead Expert for EIA and Audit.
Patrick has previously served as Director of City Planning for Nairobi (2001-2002, 2005-2006) and Kisumu cities, (2002-2005) Deputy Director of Urban Development in the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development. He was in the team of experts who designed the Kenya Municipal Programme, (2009-2011) funded by the World Bank. Patrick was the urban specialist providing technical backstopping to the taskforce on devolution in 2011.He was the coordinator and team leader for the first National Urban Development Policy for Kenya, and also one of the 10 experts who drafted the Urban Areas and Cities, (UACA 2011) Act. He was the overall team leader coordinating on behalf of the national government the preparation of the JICA funded Nairobi Integrated Urban Development Masterplan 2014-2030.
Until April 2019, Patrick was the first Director, Infrastructure Development at Konza Technopolis where he completed design and construction of the eight storey Konza Complex, in 2019. He was also responsible for design and construction of 40 kilometres of integrated horizontal green infrastructure in the 400 acre first phase of the Konza Smart City Project.
Patrick has travelled widely (33 countries in Africa, Europe, North and South America as well as middle and Far East). He has attended high profile meetings such as the UN-Habitat World Urban Forum and City dialogues such as the Johannesburg Laboratory in 2014. He has also attended Rockefeller Foundation sponsored conferences in Bellagio. Italy on resilient cities, and Brooking Institute meetings in Washington DC. In 2006, he was part of a high profile delegation of the Government of Kenya that visited the US State Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of efforts to strengthen urban development in Kenya. He delivered lectures on Konza Smart City at the American Planners’ Association in 2016, as well as at the Universities of Colorado and Virginia at Boulder and Charlottesville in the USA respectively. Since 2019, Patrick has been consulting as a Freelance Town Planner and Urban Specialist. In 2021, he was part of a consultancy engaged by KoTDA to help prepare Konza’s 2nd Strategic Plan 2021-2025.
In May 2021, Patrick was engaged by Nathan Associates a US consultancy firm to help provide Technical Assistance to the government of Kenya – Kenya Threshold program on behalf of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (US government agency). This TA was towards designing a program to address lack of connectivity in Nairobi as a binding constraint to economic development, policy support and institutional reform. In December 2021, the World Bank contracted Patrick to help facilitate “the Nairobi Metropolitan Dialogue”. This was a dialogue the bank was conducting with the government of Kenya, (State Department of Urban and Metropolitan Development). The purpose was to inform discussions on how to develop optimum governance and fiscal arrangements for the Nairobi Metropolitan Region.
In September 2022 Patrick was part of a team of experts providing Technical Assistance to the State Department of Devolution. The team was helping to strengthen National and County Government capacities in Local Economic Development (LED) in the counties. The overall assignment involved the preparation of a national framework for Local Economic Development in Kenya funded by the European Union.