About Ohala Africa

REIMAGINING AFRICA

Ohala Africa is a Kenya-based nonprofit organization working at the intersection of economic transformation, institutional development and human flourishing.

We work at the level of systems—where economic and social outcomes are shaped by how capital, institutions, leadership, enterprise and values come together.

Grounded in Africa and engaged with global questions, our work is guided by a simple conviction: durable transformation depends not simply on accelerating growth, but on building the institutions, relationships and systems that enable people and economies to flourish over the long term.

OUR JOURNEY

Ohala Africa was founded and is led by Pete Ondeng, a development practitioner, strategist and thought leader with more than four decades of experience across Africa’s public, private and international development sectors.

Our journey began in the Lake Victoria Region, where close engagement with communities, enterprises and institutions has provided a living context for inquiry and practice.

This experience has reinforced our conviction that many of the challenges confronting Africa are interconnected—and that lasting solutions require us to look beyond individual projects to the systems that shape economic life: governance, leadership, capital, markets, trust and stewardship.

We therefore seek to connect ideas with practice.

We work at human scale, translating lived realities into insight that can inform policy, investment, enterprise and institutional development. Where appropriate, we develop or support practical initiatives that allow new approaches to be tested in the real world.

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 initiatives such as SAFI. These are not conceived simply as stand-alone projects, but as opportunities to explore alternative ways of organizing economic activity—ways that place greater emphasis on stewardship, responsibility, trust and long-term value creation.

FROM PLACE TO A LARGER CONVERSATION

As our work has evolved, so too has the question at its heart:

What will it take for Africa to translate its extraordinary promise into lasting power and prosperity?

That question now extends beyond any single region, sector or initiative.

It has given rise to The African Century Forum—a global community of Africans and friends of Africa coming together to learn, connect, exchange ideas, build relationships and collaborate in shaping Africa’s future.

Inspired by Pete Ondeng’s forthcoming book, The African Century: From Promise to Power, the Forum provides a space for entrepreneurs, professionals, investors, academics, thinkers, leaders and emerging leaders to engage with some of the questions that will shape Africa’s next chapter.

The Forum is emerging from Ohala Africa’s journey and is initially hosted by Ohala Africa as it develops its own identity, community and partnerships.

This represents an evolution rather than a departure.

Ohala Africa remains grounded in place and practical work, while the Forum creates a wider space in which the ideas, relationships and possibilities emerging from that experience can be explored with people across Africa and the Diaspora.

OUR AMBITION

Our ambition is simple:

To connect systems thinking to lived reality, ideas to action, and today’s work to the Africa we want to help build.

We believe Africa’s future will not be determined simply by what the continent possesses, but by what Africans and their partners are able to build—with the institutions, leadership, enterprise, capital and relationships to make that future possible.

Reimagining Africa. Building for the future.