Leah is a feminist political economy analyst with more than 10 years’ experience working on women’s rights and gender justice issues across Africa. Her work engages with macro-level economic policy in the fields of public finance, reproductive justice, and labour rights.
She was previously the Head of Programmes and Deputy Executive Director at Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) where she provided strategic leadership to the team across seven African countries in the thematic areas of Women’s Political Leadership, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and Economic Justice and Climate Action. Her work looks at the intersection of economic exploitation and gender oppression and its implication on the achievement of broader women’s rights. In this regard, she focuses on issues of tax and labour rights, but with contributions to a diversity of other macro-economic policy issues. She was previously the Research Advocacy and Movement Building Manager, where she steered the organization’s feminist research and knowledge-building work, and its women’s economic justice portfolio.
Leah’s research and writing interests include economic governance focusing on tax justice and illicit financial flows, corporate accountability, and decent work for women, particularly those in global value chains. Her recent work in that regard includes contributing to the co-creation of a workshop facilitation guide on feminist approaches to understanding illicit financial flows and redirecting global wealth, and co-editing ‘From the Margins to the Centre, Discourses on the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Women in Uganda’, a volume of essays authored by Uganda women on the ramifications of the pandemic, among other publications.
Leah has an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in Political Science from Williams College, U.S.A.
Change can be precipitated by anger, pain, and even disappointment. However, this cocktail of emotions must be confronted and channelled to allow for the naming and articulation of the problem. This serves as a process of consciousness building without which the issue remains abstract, an overwhelming fog. Consciousness lends legitimacy to the cause and allows individuals to locate themselves within the struggle. Once people realise that an aggregate of their diverse and complementary roles can create a groundswell, then change is inevitable.Leah Eryenyu