Meet the Team Behind ARDHI

With a team of legal experts, policy analysts, and community organizers, ARDHI significantly contributes to justice sector reform and good governance across the East African region and beyond.

Founder’s Leadership

For years, my role as a university lecturer centered on the intricate intersection of law, land economics, policy, and sustainable development. I found fulfillment in guiding my students through precedents, concepts, and theories, believing this academic rigor was my meaningful contribution not only to their growth but also to the progress of my country.
But everything I thought I knew changed in an instant after the Kiteezi Landfill disaster. This was no ordinary environmental crisis; it was a glaring wound in the fabric of our society. The slide buried homes, destroyed livelihoods, and tragically, took lives. The disaster stripped away the surface to reveal our vulnerability: food insecurity affecting those living day to day, a fragmented policy system unable to effectively coordinate disaster response, neglected public health risks, and land governance that left marginalized communities betrayed and unheard.
At first, it felt like another distant case study, another brutal expose of systemic failure and another policy failure to dissect. Then my phone rang. The call was a shock wave or, more accurately, a spark; my own errand rider (bodaboda man as we locally call them), a kind and hardworking man I knew, had lost his dear wife in this tragedy. Suddenly, policy failure was no longer theoretical. It was personal. This pivotal crisis transformed theory into a call for action. The classroom where I once dissected these issues felt painfully inadequate. My students and I had debated policy failures in abstract terms; now we faced the urgent need to create real, measurable change.
Ardhi Law and Policy Initiative was born from this awakening. Ardhi, meaning 'land' or 'earth' in Swahili, embodies the conviction that true, lasting progress grows from the roots of just laws, actions, and inclusive policies. It marked the leap from academic reflection to frontline community engagement, a mission to rebuild and strengthen the foundations of sustainable development where it matters most.

Counsel Nassir Mwanje Founder & Country Director