About
We are a deliberately built boutique firm with a single purpose: to shift the development sector from donor-driven dependency toward African-led sustainability. Here’s the story of why we exist and how we work.
The aid system was built for donors, not communities.
Development programs succeed when institutions are strong, evidence informs decisions, and communities hold ownership. Too often, these elements operate separately. We work at their intersection.
To drive systemic transformation and realize a future of equitable, locally-led, sustainable development across the continent.
Every system we build is created to function without us.
Shifting power back to where it belongs.
Our vision: An Africa where external support plays a supporting role not the leading one. Where local institutions are trusted, capable, and fully in charge of their own progress.
How we work
Not just consultants. We are Catalysts for change.
01
Standard
Every programe we design starts with listening. We use approaches built around how things actually work in that specific place the history, the culture, the politics, the people
02
Delivery
Communities lead. We support. We run workshops and planning sessions where the people who live with the problem define what the solution looks like — then we help them build it.
03
Legacy
We plan for the end from the beginning. Every piece of work includes a clear handover skills, systems, and confidence so that when we leave, the work continues
The people behind the revolution.
Built from lived experience across the African development sector. Every person here has worked in the field, not just studied it from a distance.
Akinyi Oongo
FouNding PARTNER
Akinyi Oongo is a Founding Partner at Mapinduzi Consulting Firm, a Pan-African advisory practice working to strengthen grassroots movements and shift power in philanthropy across Africa. Her work focuses on supporting donors and community-based organizations to build stronger, more equitable
systems for resourcing and sustaining social change. She brings over a decade of experience at the intersection of global health, gender equality, and movement building. Akinyi has managed multimillion-dollar grant portfolios across Sub-Saharan Africa and partnered with a diverse range of grassroots organizations to strengthen governance, mobilize resources, and build institutional capacity. Her expertise spans grantmaking, partnership development, and organizational strengthening, with a focus on ensuring that grassroots actors are equipped not just to deliver programs, but to lead and shape their own agendas. Rooted in feminist principles of equity, justice, and collective power, Akinyi works to advance funding approaches that are flexible, trust-based, and grounded in lived realities. She is particularly committed to supporting women-led and community-based organizations advancing women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and to ensuring that they are meaningfully resourced, trusted, and centered in decision-making spaces. Read More
JUDICAELLE IRAKOZE
MANAGING PARTNER
Judicaelle Irakoze is an award-winning feminist thought leader and seasoned executive with over 10 years of experience driving strategic fundraising and high-impact programs for gender and racial equity across the Global South. As the Managing Partner, she leads a premier African-led consultancy designed to ensure the
continent's development is architected, led, and sustained by Africans. Her leadership bridges the gap between global resources and local impact through a holistic ecosystem of services, including decolonial research, participatory M&E frameworks, and strategic digital empowerment. With an academic background in Political Science and Global Policy, Judicaelle specializes in decolonizing development through feminist leadership and systemic change. Her career is defined by a proven track record of managing complex, multi-country operations across more than 27 African nations, from the Great Lakes region to West Africa. She is a specialist in designing disruptive funding prototypes and scalable systems that center grassroots activists and informal groups, leveraging digital transformation and decolonial frameworks to shape the future of the development sector in Africa. Judicaelle’s professional journey includes significant leadership roles at various institutions. Her expertise in global policy architecture is evidenced by her work with UN Women, Global Fund for Women, CIVICUS, and Plan International. Throughout her career, Judicaelle has been recognized with numerous honors, including being named Activist of the Year in 2021, a G20 Global Changer in 2019, and a Young Global Leader by the European Union. Her work is rooted in human-centered strategy and ethical governance, ensuring equitable power-sharing and local ownership in resource allocation. By translating complex humanitarian data into actionable strategic roadmaps, she continues to challenge traditional top-down development paradigms and amplify African voices on the global stage. Read MoreOur Values & Impact
What we stand for.
African Excellence
Every program we design starts from an African frame not as the starting point for development practice, but as the standard it aspires to. African excellence is our measure and, our benchmark.
Evidence-Driven Insights
We build programs that start with knowing, not guessing. Rigorous, participatory research isn’t a box to tick it’s the foundation everything else is built on. Local expertise informs everything we do.
Feminist practise
Equity isn’t optional. We centre the voices, rights, and lived realities of the most marginalized especially women and girls. We don’t just talk about systemic change; we design it in from the start.