Peter Kagwanja

Who is Peter Kagwanja?

Peter Kagwanja is a Kenyan academic, adviser to the Government of Kenya and expert consultant with regional and international governments and organizations. He is the founding President and Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute, a pan-African think-tank focusing on policy research and analysis on governance, security and geo-political issues. As an academic émigré in the United States of America, Europe and South Africa, Kagwanja worked with numerous universities, intellectual networks and international policy/research think-tanks. He was Regional Director of the Brussels-based think-tank, International Crisis Group and Director of Research/Executive Director at the Human Sciences Research Council. Kagwanja has published widely on political violence, refugees, forced displacement, and counter-terrorism,. But he is better known in intellectual circles for his research on youth and generational politics in Africa, particularly on the Mungiki youth movement—popularly seen as a successor to the Mau Mau and a sharp reaction to the intense modernizing direction of the Agikuyu.