Our directors

Lyla Latif is a Kenyan based lawyer with litigation experience and has drafted legislation for the Government of Kenya. Based on her 11 years as a legal professional and researcher on fiscal responsible regimes, she has built an international reputation as a consultant producing scholarship and making evidence-based policy recommendations for governments and international organisations focusing on closing revenue leakages and financing human rights. She has established strategic working partnerships with stakeholders who are keen to influence tax justice, responsible state building, financing equitable development and improving lives through shared and inclusive economic prosperity.

In this regard, she has worked with, advised, and consulted for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation, WHO, UNCTAD, OHCHR, UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, UNAIDS, UNGA Economic and Financial Committee, the Tax Justice Network Africa, East Africa Tax and Governance Network, Africa Forum for Debt and Development, SEATINI, the Kenyan and German Parliaments and several international organisations. Lyla has gained expertise on the fiscal regimes in Africa and the continent’s approach to securing its fiscal space to finance development and to leverage on the digital economy. The impact of her work can be seen from her publications, international speaking engagements, advocacy work and tax trainings of over 3,000 Africans (Members of Parliament, journalists, lawyers, accountants, economists, political scientists, graduate students, civil society activists) since 2018.

She holds faculty position at the University of Nairobi, where she co-founded the Committee of Fiscal Studies (CFS). She has also taught at Cardiff University and Warwick Law School. Lyla is an appointed member of the inaugural Tax Law Committee of the East Africa Law Society (2022-2024). She sits on the Advisory Board of the International Lawyers Project (2022-2024), and trains on tax related content globally with Rotterdam’s tax training organisation, Capabuild.

Yamini Mishra is currently serving as the Country Director for Mac Arthur Foundation in India. Prior to this, she was the Regional Director for Amnesty International’s South Asia Regional Office, with additional interim charge for Amnesty International’s South Asia Regional Office and East, Southeast Asia and Pacific Regional Office as well. She has also served as the Programme Director of the Global Issues Programme which included the Gender, Sexuality and Identity Unit, the Economic and Social Justice Unit, the Refugees and Migrant Rights Unit, and the Business, Security and Human Rights Unit.

She has served on the Advisory Group of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Financing for Gender Equality and is on the board of Centre of Democracy and Social Action and on the Governing Board of Centre for Agrarian Reform and Economic Studies.

Nara Monkam is soon to join the University of Pretoria as a Professor of Economics and was previously the Director of Research at the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF). She has more than 10 years of experience in tax administration reforms in Africa. She has demonstrated leadership and managerial skills in leading both operational and analytical teams, through major multidisciplinary research, technical assistance and capacity building programmes at ATAF and the African Tax Institute. She has more than 16 years of experience in research and policy analysis in Africa.

She has published scholarly and policy-oriented research on public economics, tax reform, revenue administration, fiscal decentralisation, and local government taxation. Her work has involved long-term collaboration and advisory services with international research institutions and countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Vietnam. She has worked as a consultant for bilateral and multilateral development organizations, including the EU, GIZ, T20 and the World Bank. Her experience also covers teaching, thesis supervision and training in public finance, tax administration reforms, fiscal decentralisation reforms, and property taxation. Nara Monkam holds a PhD in economics from Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia (USA).

Irene Ovonji-Odida is a lawyer and women’s rights activist. She was a Member of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa (Mbeki High Level Panel) and UN FACTI Panel. She is a member of the Independent Commission for Reform of International Corporate Tax (ICRICT), South Center Tax Initiative and the Pan African Lawyers Union task force on Illicit Financial Flows. She previously served in the East African Legislative Assembly, and was International Board Chair for ActionAid International and Chief Executive Officer of the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers.

Emilia Reyes is Programme Director of Policies and Budgets for Equality and Sustainable Development, at Equidad de Género: Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia (Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work and Family). She is Co-Convenor of the Women’s Working Group on Financing for Development, as well as a co-lead of the Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition in the UN Women’s Beijing+25 process.

She’s a Contributing Author in the segment “Gender, Climate Justice and Transformative Pathways” of the IPCC report: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. For five years she was an Organizing Partner of the Women’s Major Group for the 2030 Agenda; for two years she was Co-chair of the High Level Political Forum’s Major Groups and Stakeholders Coordination Mechanism.