About Aliasgher
Aliasgher Janmohammed is a development practitioner, changemaker and policy strategist whose work focuses on bridging the gap between policy design and implementation. With over eight years of experience across international development, urban governance, public health, and civic participation, he specialises in translating complex policy ambitions into practical outcomes within resource-constrained environments.
He currently works as an independent consultant, supporting organisations working across urban governance, housing access, and institutional reform. A key area of his recent work has focused on strengthening citizen accountability mechanisms within South African wards. Through collaborations with activists and civic organisations in Cape Town, he has supported the development of community manifestos that articulate residents’ priorities ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
Previously, Aliasgher worked as Programme Lead at a civic-tech organisation, where he led multi-city governance and institutional reform programmes across South Africa. His work focused on data governance, digital public infrastructure, institutional capacity building, and municipal transformation. He authored city-level data strategies, designed governance frameworks to support data-driven decision-making, and contributed to the development of scalable open-data tools now used across more than 50 African cities.
Prior to this, he worked within provincial government support programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic, coordinating cross-departmental responses and community engagement initiatives focused on public health, food security, and vaccine communication. He also led UNICEF South Africa’s first comprehensive national baseline study on child road safety, combining research, policy advocacy, and stakeholder coordination across government institutions.
Aliasgher holds a Master of Engineering in Transport Studies from the University of Cape Town, where his distinction-awarded research focused on socioeconomic disparities in road safety outcomes, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering from Manipal University.
Alongside his professional work, he supports civic initiatives in Cape Town focused on inclusive urban development, community accountability, and improvements to public infrastructure. In 2025, he and his wife launched Asambe, meaning “let’s go” in isiZulu, a podcast aimed at expanding young people’s exposure to career pathways and opportunities.
Born in Tanzania and now based in South Africa, Aliasgher’s multifaceted background as a Muslim Indo-African influences his work and worldview. Growing up in a low-income household raised by a working mother continues to shape his commitment to gender equity, public service, and creating systems that work for ordinary people.
Partners I’ve Worked With
- African Centre for Cities
- City of Cape Town municipality
- Ekurhuleni municipality
- eThekwini municipality
- Msunduzi municipality
- Ray Nkoyeni municipality
- Tshwane municipality
- Ugu municipality
- UK FCDO
- UNICEF
- Western Cape Government
Projects I’ve Worked On
- UNICEF Prevention of Road Injuries on Children in South Africa
- Oxford University Child Restraint Survey
- WC Provincial Public Health Intervention
- Food Garden Accessibility
- Multi-stream research on COVID vaccines in South African communities
- City of Johannesburg strategy and dashboard development
- UK FCDO Urban Resilience Data Capabilities Support to Municipalities
In these projects, I have played multiple roles as Programme Lead, Project Lead, Strategy Development, Grants Officer, Partnerships Lead, supporting and leading teams to develop shared outcomes for all critical stakeholders.
Why Partner With Me?
Good policy only matters if people actually feel it working in their lives. I’ve spent my career sitting at the point where strategy meets implementation, helping governments, development partners and civil society groups turn ambitious ideas into systems people can actually use. Whether that’s a city-wide data strategy, a national policy study, or a community accountability initiative, I care about one thing: does this reform actually change anything for the people it’s meant to serve.
I translate policy into practice, run complicated, multi-stakeholder programmes for the past eight years, and have worked in housing, public health, transport, service delivery and urban governance, always trying to build capability that sticks around, rather than dependency on outside vendors.
Research underpins all of it, and I also try to leave things stronger than I found them. I set up a Community of Practice linking municipalities across South Africa so they could share what they were learning and build common approaches to shared problems. I’ve turned years of programme delivery into toolkits that let cities scale reforms on their own, part of a bigger goal of reaching hundreds of cities across Africa.
Most importantly, I like making complicated things make sense to people. Good evidence only gets you halfway; the rest is bringing people along with you.
If you’re designing a strategy, strengthening institutions, running stakeholder engagement, or delivering a governance programme with a lot of moving parts, this is where I can help: turning evidence, people and policy into change that actually lasts.