Our Mentors

Clarissa Augustinus, PhD

Clarissa Augustinus is a leading land expert and consultant, whose current portfolio includes the role of Senior Advisor to the Arab Land Initiative; a collaboration between UN-Habitat and the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), which she founded in 2004 and led for its first 11 years. Clarissa also holds the role of Honorary Ambassador to the Federation of International Surveyors (FIG) in recognition of her service to the global surveying and land administration sectors.

Clarissa completed her doctorate in Social Anthropology (Rhodes University, South Africa) in 1995, and has dedicated 27 years to the fields of land administration, management, reform and restoration, and surveying. This includes six years as Senior lecturer in the Department of Land Surveying, at the University of KwaZulu Natal with a focus on land management and cadastral reform. For a further 12 years Clarissa led the focus for urban land in the UN system, as head of UN-Habitat, Land and GLTN Urban Legislation, Land and Governance Branch, based in Nairobi Kenya.

Her contribution incorporates an extensive body of published work covering pro poor land administration and management, and land and property in fragile states. This includes co-editorship of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (2022) and the Global Land Outlook 2nd Edition (2020-2021).

Mercy Karanja

Mercy Karanja is a development consultant, leadership coach, and mentor for aspiring leaders. She has 30 years of experience in development and started her career in the Ministry of Agriculture/Livestock in Kenya where she was appointed District Head, straight out of college.

As Chief Executive Officer of Kenya National Farmers Union, Mercy successfully restructured the organisation to take up service provision in addition to its traditional advocacy work. Her role included representing farmers at the World Trade Organization and in policy debates at the United Nations, World Bank and other regional fora.

In 2004, Mercy became Global Advocacy Coordinator at the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) in Paris. This role further shaped her understanding of the global forces affecting local farmers in far lands without their knowledge. She resolved to bridge this gap.

In 2008, Mercy began a fourteen-year tenure as Senior Program Officer (Agricultural Team) at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Her achievements here include delivering a platform for allowing African farmers to present their issues; a regional universities forum to improve university curriculum and strengthen agricultural faculties; support to government and local institutions to deliver services effectively.

Mercy holds a master's degree in Development Economics and International Development from Reading University, UK. Born in rural Kenya, picking coffee and attending rural local schools, Mercy has had an amazing journey and knows first-hand what it takes to be at the top. Her consultancy enables her to inspire others to live a life of no limits.

Uchendu Eugene Chigbu, PhD

Eugene is an Associate Professor in Land Administration, at the Department of Land and Spatial Sciences at Namibia University of Science and Technology. His expertise lies within the interface between Social Sciences and Geodesy, innovating solutions for societal development challenges using land-based approaches. His work across teaching, community services and research focus on land administration and land management themes, including land-use planning, land and natural resource tenure, land policy and governance and transformation of urban, peri-urban and rural settlements.

Eugene is an Associate Editor of the journal Land Use Policy and reviewer of more than 10 international journals. He is co-Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (UN-Habitat). He is also the Coordinator of the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) in the Southern African Region.

He has managed international multi-stakeholder projects co-funded by the GLTN/UN-Habitat, GIZ, and International Social Science Council. His most prominent projects are the tenure responsive land-use planning which involved research activities in Angola, Brazil, Chile, Ivory Coast, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, The Philippines and Zambia. Eugene spent 12 years with the Technical University of Munich and has supervised over 30 postgraduate theses on various land related topics in urban and rural contexts. He has served as principal PhD examiner at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He is an external examiner to Ardhi University in Tanzania.

Eugene’s most recent book, “Land Governance and Gender: The Tenure–Gender Nexus in Land Management and Land Policy” was published in 2022.

Prof. Patricia Mbote

Patricia Kameri-Mbote is an environmental law specialist and Director of the Law Division, UNEP, overseeing the functions of UNEP in the field of environmental law, governance, and related policy issues. She has been Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of Nairobi, for over 30 years, and is also former Dean.

Patricia’s extensive knowledge is acquired in research, environmental law, and policy making and implementation at local, national, regional and international levels. She consulted for UNEP in the review of programmes, legal instruments, and the rules of engagement of major groups. Since 2007 she has engaged in the Montevideo Environmental Law Programme and she is a member of the Governing Board of the Council on Environmental Law (ICEL).

Patricia was Founding Research Director of the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC) and Programme Director for Africa for over 20 years. She is a member of the Senior Counsel Bar in Kenya. She has taught environmental law at Kansas University, University of Zimbabwe and Stellenbosch University. She served as chair of the Association of Environmental Law Lecturers in African Universities, a collaboration with UNEP to build environmental law capacity through training and research; and has contributed to the development of similar initiatives for North Africa and Middle East and for judges.

Patricia holds doctorate (1999) and master’s (1996) degrees in law from Stanford University and a higher doctorate from the University of Nairobi (2019). Her field of study for both being environmental law and its interactions with other areas of law such as property law and women’s law. She also holds a master’s degree from Warwick University (1989) and was awarded an honorary degree in law by the University of Oslo (UiO) in 2017 for her work cutting across established fields of Women’s Law, Natural Resources Law, Human Rights and Law and Development.

Pranab Choudhury

Pranab Choudhury is an interdisciplinary researcher and consultant in the areas of natural resource management and governance, with two decades of engagement across water, livelihoods, forestry and land issues. His work spans governments, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), International (I)NGOs, and communities across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

In 2002 Pranab was awarded the prestigious Vasant Rao Naik Award for Research Application in Agriculture, for his work developing model watersheds to restore hill landscapes and tribal livelihoods, at India’s National Agriculture Research System.

Pranab’s land engagement includes coordination and implementation of the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) for the World Bank in Odisha, conducting action research on women, land rights, tribal rights and forest rights with local and global agencies.

He founded and heads the Centre for Land Governance (CLG), a leading think tank addressing land governance policy and research in India and globally. CLG engages in policy and action research with governments, multilateral agencies and Development Finance Institutions, academics, NGOs, and private sector. CLG convenes the India Land and Development Conference every year, to bring together land actors to engage in and attempt to change land conversations.

Pranab holds a master’s degree in Forestry. He is passionate about building a land ecosystem in the Global South and integrating land tenure in global and local development agendas, creating partnerships, connections and conversations to this end.

Hamish Stewart JD

Hamish Stewart works with the world's largest banks and institutional investors on climate change risk management and net zero-aligned investment strategy. This is as Principal Consultant, Sustainable Finance for Eco Act, an Atos company.

In 2014, Hamish launched the legal program at the Asset Owners Disclosure Project; an Advocacy NGO which rates the world’s largest institutional investors and assesses their response to climate-related risks and opportunities. The ratings are made public, providing much-needed transparency for beneficiaries, clients, investors, and stakeholders, and emphasized through advocacy and direct engagement to drive change.

More recently, he worked with the PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment), an UN-supported network of investors, working to promote sustainable investment, on a number of their flagship climate programs, including support for the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance and working with the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero.

Hamish holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Juris Doctor (Law) degree from the University of British Columbia. He spent his early childhood in Rwanda and Nigeria.

Ngamije Delphin

Ngamije Delphin is an expert in risk management, banking, and financial support services. He is currently Africa Regional Director for YAPU Solutions; an impact-driven organization offering digital tools and solutions for improved risk management, climate and nature-based solutions for financial service providers. Delphin has a strong ability to mobilize, engage and enable MFIs and the private sector to become agents of change by financing and investing in nature-based solutions that make smallholders and farmers more resilient and productive.
Delphin’s wide-ranging knowledge of inclusive agricultural and green finance encompasses the development and delivery of business proposals, strategy, and project implementation, including quantification of financial, environmental (ecosystem and climate change), and socio-economic risks. Delphin also has extensive experience and skills in strategy development for and management of microfinance institutions and solar companies.
He holds a master’s degree in Microfinance Management from CESAG, Dakar and holds Certified Expertise in Risk Management, from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

Alethia Cameron

Alethia Cameron is a Policy Analyst with the Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agriculture Policies Programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization with over eight years of experience coordinating research, policy monitoring and engagement in East and Southern African countries, and technical specialization in agricultural public expenditure analysis and estimating the effects of trade and market policies on key agricultural value chains.

Tawanda Muzhingi, PhD

Tawanda Muzhingi is Director of International Programs, Innovation, Partnerships and Food Systems at the Plant Based Foods Institute.

A food scientist, nutritionist and development expert, Tawanda has worked in global research with Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International and CGIAR.

Under CGIAR, with the International Potato Center (CIP) and the Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) Program, Tawanda was Senior Scientist and Flagship Leader based in Nairobi, Kenya. At CIP and RTB Tawanda led the market systems development and commercialization of roots, tubers and banana crops. Tawanda established the Food and Nutritional Evaluation Laboratory (FANEL), a food science, nutrition and food safety reference laboratory for the CGIAR which supports breeding for quality traits, market traits and nutrition. Tawanda established effective collaborations with Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)’s work on food systems, biofortification and nutrition sensitive agriculture. Before joining CIP, Tawanda worked for 10 years at the Jean Mayer United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Services (ARS) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.

Tawanda obtained his doctorate in Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition and a master’s degree in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Nutrition from the University of Zimbabwe. Tawanda is adjunct professor in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing & Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.

Oumar Ndiaye

Oumar Ndiaye is community-based development enthusiast, and passionate about innovation and sustainability. He is driven by an appetite for social justice and equality across the world and is most exhilarated when his work brings inspiration and meaning to those who need it most.

Over the past 13 years Oumar has delivered resource mobilisation in excess of USD 1 billion, financing agriculture, resilience, health, education, nutrition and access to water and sanitation, human rights, gender equality etc across Africa. He has delivered leadership and oversight on resource mobilisation, influencing, communication and strategic partnership for organisations including UN System, WaterAid UK, Plan International, Alliance for the Green Revolution and Nutrition International at country, regional and international levels.

Currently Director Africa, Business Development at Nutrition International, Oumar leads the development and implementation of the organisation’s growth strategy for Africa, scaling solutions to malnutrition through increased coverage, leverage and influence.

Ambitious to be a lifelong learner, Oumar is an HEC Paris alumnus, with a master’s degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He also holds an MBA and MA in International Relations and Diplomacy.

Fluent in English and French, rooted in Africa and globally connected, Oumar has lived in, worked in, or visited nearly half of the countries in Africa.