The word “OHALA” means “business” in the Luo language, predominantly spoken in the Lake region.
About Ohala Africa
Inspiring Collective Action to Improve Lives and Livelihoods
The Ohala Africa Foundation is a Kenya-based nonprofit organization working at the level of systems—where economic outcomes are shaped by how capital, institutions, and values are aligned. Grounded in Africa and engaged with global questions, our work is guided by a simple conviction: durable economic transformation depends less on acceleration than on stewardship, trust, and institutional coherence.
Ohala Africa was founded and is led by Pete Ondeng, a development practitioner and thought leader with more than three decades of experience in economic development, policy engagement, and institution building across Africa.
Our work is rooted in the Lake Victoria Region, where close engagement with communities, enterprises, and institutions provides a living context for inquiry and practice. Rather than pursuing isolated projects, we focus on strengthening the underlying conditions—governance, leadership, and market credibility—on which resilient economic life depends.
We operate at human scale, translating local realities into insight that informs policy, investment, and institutional reform. In a world shaped by ecological stress, technological change, and shifting global dynamics, we seek to demonstrate how finance can be used as a formative force—reinforcing responsibility, discipline, and long-term thinking when embedded within credible institutions.
This approach has shaped our work across strategic value chains in the Lake Region, beginning with aquaculture and the wider blue economy, and has led to the development of initiatives such as SAFI. These efforts are not conceived as stand-alone interventions, but as practical demonstrations of alternative ways to organize economic activity—ways that privilege stewardship over extraction and coherence over fragmentation.
Across all our work, Ohala Africa remains grounded in place and guided by purpose—connecting systems thinking to lived reality, and investing in people, institutions, and ideas capable of shaping Africa’s future while contributing meaningfully to global conversations.