Meet Our Founder
Personal Trauma with Systemic Origins
Sharp screams pierced the night air and we knew that the gang wielding machetes, bows and arrows was once again upon us. It was around 9 pm. One hour earlier, my cousins and I had been hastily ushered out of my grandmother’s homestead as my uncles and the older cousins (15 years and above) stayed behind to defend the compound. With just the clothes on our bodies, we rushed to the next ridge – around 2 kilometres away – where it was alleged that one of our elderly relatives would protect us since he was a retired reservist and still had a rifle from his army days.
All around us, houses were on fire and we knew that our biggest risk was the house getting torched with us trapped inside. We quickly rushed out and fled into the bush. Surrounded by some trees, we hid. Huddled together, scared to bits, hearts beating, and fast breathing. Some silently crying, some praying and some too shocked to react. The older ones covering the mouths of the young ones – lest they wail and betray our positions. I lay there confused.
Is this a dream? Is this the night that I die? Will the morning ever come?
The date was on 30th December 2007. The presidential election results had just been announced. The opposition claimed that the incumbent had rigged the vote and the country burst into flames – figuratively and literally. In less than 2 months, over 1,300 people lost their lives and approximately 700,000 were displaced from their homes.
Old Roots, New Ruptures
While the disputed election results served as the immediate trigger, the explosiveness of the violence was rooted in two main factors. Firstly, since independence, Kenya’s politics has been shaped by ethnicity, with political mobilization often organized along ethnic lines rather than ideological or policy differences. Nation-building has never been undertaken: ethnic groups perceive access to state resources and development opportunities as dependent on having “one of your own” in leadership.
The second factor was unresolved, long-standing historical land injustices stemming from colonial dispossession and post-independence marginalization. During British colonial rule, vast tracts of fertile land were forcibly taken from indigenous communities and allocated to white settlers. After independence, instead of restoring the land to its original owners, some of it was redistributed through government settlement schemes that disproportionately favoured politically dominant communities while a substantial part remained under the control of white landowners and their affiliated trusts and corporate entities.
As such, that night found my family as an ethnic minority in a region predominated by a community that felt dispossessed of their land, socio-economically marginalized and robbed of an election victory. Notably, while the majority of ethnic minorities owned small plots in which they did subsistence farming, several multi-nationals with colonial-era roots owned thousands of hectares of tea plantations primarily grown for export. It was ironic that despite speaking the same language (as a result of decades of inter-communal co-existence), my community was still regarded as “foreign,” while the foreign MNCs which owned most of the fertile land were not.
You attribute your poverty to the equally poor person next door while the large MNCs that are exploiting you go unnoticed.
While the trauma of that experience stayed, it was only years later that I was able to connect it to a bigger picture: the need not just for nation-building based on equality, inclusion and justice but also for connecting the dots between present day poverty in many African countries and continued legacy of extractive economic structures that can be traced back to colonialism.
I didn’t know it yet but the first seeds for PCAD were planted.
Early Glimpse into a Faulty System
Several years later while in law school, I volunteered at an NGO that was implementing a programme on gender equality and women’ empowerment (GEWE) focused on education and health. One of the main issues in the region was girls skipping school due to lack of sanitary products and so one of the projects involved distributing ‘dignity kits’ – primarily menstrual pads and underwear. A few weeks into the programme, it was alleged that boys were feeling left out.
When word reached the NGO heads, they came up with a quick solution: “let us also give boys underwear. That way, they will not feel left out.”
Even with my limited experience, I could see how misguided this was. While girls genuinely needed sanitary products and underwear, boys in that region faced different challenges. Instead of asking what is the most pressing issue facing boys in the region (which in this case was them having to take care of their younger siblings as the AIDS epidemic had created a lot of child-headed households), the NGO chose the easy way out.
They ignored the fact that the same poverty that prevented girls from affording sanitary products was also preventing boys from staying in school. The NGO didn’t want to do the difficult work of addressing root-causes, of seeing the society as a whole, inter-connected system. Of understanding that despite their best efforts, the sanitary products were being traded for food, thus undermining the project’s objectives.
The Problem with the Development Sector
Of course, part of the problem was due to funding and other capacity-related constraints facing the NGO. But a huge part boils down to inherent deficiencies of the ‘development’ sector and the incentives, attitudes and capabilities of its various players.
The NGO was mostly concerned with its burn-rate and showing deliverables within the funding window. The local context, structural issues and long-term sustainability mattered little. It knew that a colourful report with facts, figures and case studies reinforced by photographs of happy-looking girls will satisfy the donor. The donor would in turn, use the report as evidence of funds well-spent and the ‘success story’ might even be shared as a ‘best-practice’ on inclusive service delivery with development actors in other countries.
Across our service areas, PCAD’s approach is structural and holistic. We do not pretend to provide solutions while glossing over root causes and inter-linkages.
Policy, Legislation and Marginalisation
My professional journey has also shaped my vision for PCAD.
While working for UN-Habitat, I undertook an assessment on the role of law on human rights realization in urban contexts. This experience exposed me to how modernist development thinking made its way to urban planning to the detriment of millions of urban dwellers. Through colonisation, international development agencies and foreign consultants, imported frameworks were transplanted to many African countries.
I was the main contributor of a report that showed that in addition to such frameworks having no bearing on local realities, they were actively used as a tool for segregation and exclusion: keeping European zones (characterized by large, well serviced plots) free from local populations (who were confined to crowded, high density areas with limited public infrastructure and services).
From Kenya to South Africa, Senegal to Algeria and Mozambique to Angola, these divisions persist to this day in many African cities. Areas that had been reserved for colonial settlers are now predominated by expatriates and local elites while a significant part of the local population continues to live in informal settlements with serious deprivations.
Moreover, millions are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change, a fact that I highlighted when developing the Urban Planning Module of the Law and Climate Change Toolkit (which was a collaborative project by UNEP, UNFCCC Secretariat and the Commonwealth Secretariat to assist countries to effectively implement the Paris Agreement).
PCAD’s central focus on African-centred and contextually-relevant policies and legislation stems from these experiences as does our thematic focus on climate change, urbanization, and human rights.
Europe: Where I Connected the Dots
What brought it all together was a 3-year period when I lived and worked in Europe.
On the professional side, working with the Bonn Office of the UN System Staff College (UNSSC) gave me a rare window into the internal workings of UN agencies. The Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development was particularly instrumental in sharpening my focus on the issue of “development” with its different dimensions and consequent implications for policies and programmes at the global, regional and country levels.
UNSSC also honed my skills in designing effective capacity building interventions for a wide range of audiences and in a variety of formats (both online and in-person). Moreover, I gleefully learnt that I had a natural ability for moderating dialogues, seeing connections between different issues and breaking down complex topics into understandable bits.
Work aside, living in Germany enabled me to visit many European countries which was incredibly eye-opening.
On the one hand, it was inspirational to see countries with systems that while not perfect, were working reasonably well. Peace; near universal access to health, education, water, energy, transportation and social security; minimal gender inequality; strong environmental standards; respect for human rights; and a strong sense of civic duty.
On the other hand, however, I could not ignore the reality that the material wealth and high standard of living that I was witnessing was, (through slavery and colonialism) and (through extraction, corporate exploitation and illicit financial flows) continues to be, propped up by resources from Africa and other Global South countries.
I noticed the contradictions between what Europe was doing in its backyard vis a vis its practices abroad. How it was promoting human rights at home while funding wars in other places. How it protected its biodiversity while contributing to the destruction of the environment in Africa. How it was giving aid with one hand but taking back many times more with the other (through tax havens, profit shifting and predatory lending).
I noticed the hypocrisy behind the so-called “European values.” How its commitment to international law did not stop the refoulement of refugees. How a designation of democratic versus authoritarian leader depended on whether there was a commercial or military deal to be struck. I observed how after the Russian-Ukraine War, energy sources that had hitherto been considered dirty, were immediately green-washed and coal plants were reopened all while maintaining a rhetoric of being the leader in global climate action.
As the contradictions piled up, my time in Europe became untenable. With clarity and a mission, I made the decision to return to Africa. My eyes were now fully open. The link between prosperity in the West and under-development in the Global South was obvious. Equally important, I had the vocabulary to speak about what was happening and what was enabling it.
The Birth of PCAD
PCAD is the culmination of my personal and professional journey. From sleeping in the bush, to seeing the aid industry’s shortcomings, to inspirations and disillusionment in the streets and conference halls of Europe.
The author, Toni Morrison, famously said:
“If there is a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
PCAD is a development equivalent to Morrison’s call to action.
I (and I know many others, both within and beyond the continent) have long hoped for a development think-tank that connects the dots from the colonial to the present; the local to the global; the social, to the political and the environmental. An initiative that is Africa-focused, African-led and is guided by a principled commitment to what is good for Africa.
Here goes PCAD!
PCAD represents hope, resilience, and agency. It’s an African initiative for Africans and all those who mean well for it. It’s proof that Africans are capable of shaping their own development discourse.
Join us as we Redefine Development and Realize Africa’s Potential.
In the same way that back in 2007 the morning eventually came, Africa will surely rise!