NAIROBI, Kenya – In a country where academic firsts are hard-won, Professor Attiya Waris has carved her own space in Kenya’s legal and academic history.
She has become the country’s second full female law professor, following in the footsteps of legal scholar Patricia Mbote—but with a trail distinctly her own.
Waris also holds another rare distinction: she is the first full professor in Kenya from a religious, ethnic, and racial minority.
And across the African continent, she remains the only known professor of fiscal law.
A professor at the University of Nairobi, Waris has spent her career interrogating how money moves—and what that means for social justice.
Her scholarship has strengthened the connections between public finance and development, with a focus on taxation, debt, illicit financial flows, and their role in lifting—or locking—communities into poverty.
Her impact goes far beyond the lecture hall. She currently serves as the UN’s Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, sits on high-level international tax task forces, and advises global institutions like the World Health Organization and the Lancet Commission on Racism and Global Health.
Waris also chairs the supervisory board of Capabuild Foundation in the Netherlands, serves on the Madrid Club’s Working Group on Debt, and manages the Journal on Financing for Development, published by the University of Nairobi.
Her leadership is recognized globally: in just the last year, her work has been cited by President Michael D. Higgins of Ireland, Kenya’s Constitutional Court, and by the Bahamas’ foreign minister at the G77 summit in Kampala.
At home, she has broken glass ceilings within her own university. She is the first female professor to have held the posts of Director of Research and Acting Deputy Principal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences—both separately and at the same time.
Her influence extends to the policy world as well. Waris has been a founding member of key initiatives including the African Tax Researcher’s Network, Tax Justice Network Africa, the Capabuild Foundation, and AFRODAD-East.
Most recently, she helped launch the House of Fiscal Wisdom, a Nairobi-based think tank focused on reforming the global fiscal architecture.
In a congratulatory post, the University of Nairobi hailed her not only for her academic title, but for the rare niche she has claimed: “She is also the only known professor of Fiscal Law on the African continent!”
Congratulations @AttiyaWaris Prof. Attiya is Kenya’s 2nd full female law professor. She is also the only known professor of Fiscal Law on the African continent!! #WeareUoN
As fiscal policy becomes an increasingly urgent tool in addressing inequality and climate change, Professor Waris’s work stands at the intersection of law, economics, and justice. And now, her title matches the stature she has long held on the international stage.
