ABOUT US

The Consulting House (TCH) has its roots in the academia. More specifically, it was inspired by three processes. The first one was based in Uppsala, Sweden, at the now Nordic Africa Institute.

This was a project that brought together social scientists and lawyers from ten countries of the continent. It studied economic and political liberalisation in the 1990s. After 4 years, some of the Kenya researchers linked up with the second process. This was based at the University of Leeds in the UK. It brought together scholars to study political conditionality in Zambia, Kenya and Nigeria. Like the Nordic group, this one concluded that the absence of local nuances in donor and government policies resulted in 'conditionality see saw'. The group was challenged to constitute a team that would push for 'localising' knowledge on liberalisation.

Following a successful research project on constitution-making in Uganda by the Centre for Basic Research (CBR), the Kenya group began on the third process. This was a project on constitution-making based at the Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR) in Nairobi. The Ford Foundation supported the project from 1996 to 1998. At the conclusion of this project, it became apparent that we needed a regional think tank that would promote local solutions to the region's problems through research.

The result was the formation of Series on Alternative Research in East Africa (SAREAT). The vision of SAREAT was to "...rebuild the local knowledge industry". And TCH evolved as its consulting wing. Its current forte is in the areas of policy innovation, security and governance. TCH has undertaken assignments for governments and organisations in more than 18 countries of Africa.