Steve Wakhu

Short Biography

Steve Wakhu, joined the Brandt School as a doctoral candidate in October 2016. His doctoral research ‘Counterterrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conditions for Human Rights’ aims to establish the minimum macrosocial conditions necessary that facilitate or impede human rights in sub-Saharan Africa when governments implement counterterrorism measures. This research is supervised by Prof. Dr. Richter Solveig and Dr. Patrick Mello.

He was born in Kakamega, Western region of Kenya in 1979. He studied Sociology and Economics at Moi University in Kenya, receiving a BA in 2003. He went on to earn a Master of Public Policy with a specialisation in International Conflict Management at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt in 2014.

Mr. Wakhu has an extensive background in public service. In 2004, he worked as a Junior Rural Consultant Sociologist for the Karamoja Water Harvesting Pilot Project implemented by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) within the Karamoja cluster in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Sudan. In 2005, he worked as a Junior Consultant Sociologist for the World Bank funded ‘Supporting Community Projects in the Design and Implementation of Output Based Aid (OBA) in Kenya’. In 2006, he joined the government of Kenya within the Criminal Justice System as a Probation Officer. In 2013, he was promoted to the position of Senior Probation Officer and in 2015 he was appointed the National Programme Manager for the Improvement of Prison and Probation Services bilateral program between the governments of Kenya and Sweden.