Alumni Profile

In Kenya, Lucy Kagwanja (2003) is building roads. She was part of the 2008 team that secured financial support for the Northern Corridor Transport Improvement Project, which is expanding roads and better connecting the countries of East Africa. “The roads already go through Kenya,” Kagwanja explains, “and we hope they can eventually go up to Ethiopia and Egypt, opening up and connecting the region.”

The Northern Corridor project was realized by the U.S. $253 million financing agreement between Kenya and the World Bank, and Kagwanja is especially proud of the lasting, positive impact it is having in the region. “There’s a lot of infrastructure development because of the road network, and the roads are there because my team negotiated with the World Bank for the funds to build them. I’m really proud to have been a part of that team.”

Working in the Treaties and Arguments Department of the Kenyan Attorney General’s Office, these kinds of long negotiations and other matters of development finance are Kagwanja’s day-to-day responsibilities. Her department’s main function is to provide legal advice and negotiate on behalf of the Government of Kenya. From building roads, to negotiating production sharing agreements on oil and gas contracts, to securing a cash transfer to aid orphans and vulnerable children, Kagwanja is at the heart of Kenya’s financial future.

As a member of East African Community, Kenya has been negotiating the East African Community Monetary Union Protocol, which hopes to bring the East African countries under one monetary union and eventually under one common currency. Kagwanja represents the Kenyan attorney general at all Protocol negotiations. “The Monetary Union is moving along quite well,” she says. “Although we have not yet agreed … we’ve been studying the European Union so that we don’t make the same mistakes. We’re moving cautiously, but the Protocol should be fully agreed upon by November so that it can be presented to the heads of state during their annual November meeting … There’s also been a lot of support from the International Monetary Fund, and they’ve been quite resourceful.”

When asked about her time in the International Legal Studies Program, Kagwanja notes, “I’m applying the knowledge today that I learned in 2003.

“Most of the things we did at AU, we then did here in Kenya, and one of them was a real negotiation with the World Bank and other institutions – even the credit institutions, like in the case of syndicated borrowing … In fact, I thought of my class with Professor Daniel Bradlow when I was negotiating the $600 million syndicated loan. He was the one who first taught me about them, and here I was negotiating syndicated loans for the first time in my country.

“I also find this true when [my department is] dealing with issues of international trade, because now we’re a part of the negotiation of the regional trade agreements and it’s all tied to the WTO, the trade law that we learned in Professor Padideh Ala’i’s class. The work I do today is an application of what I learned in the ILSP Program.”

Kagwanja remembers her negotiation simulation classes in particular. “When you go to the negotiation table, the negotiation skills that we learned are the ones you apply when you’re negotiating. I have gained invaluable knowledge from ILSP,” she says, “I have seen the way [my education] has impacted the actual work I’m doing today.”

Today, Lucy Kagwanja is doing far more than building roads. Equipped with the skills learned in the International Legal Studies Program at American University Washington College of Law, she is building a network. A financial network that will ensure the development and prosperity of Kenya, a network that will secure Kenya’s place as a leader among the East African community.