A journalist and activist from Kenya, he is a leading expert on corruption in the developing world.
The Center is honored to announce that John Githongo has joined CIS as its prestigious Robert E Wilhelm fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. Githongo is among the world's leading voices on the relationship between corrupt democracies, development, and poverty in the modern world. His many honors and awards include being selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the world’s 100 top global thinkers. He is regarded as a leading light in the Transparency movement--a global initiative focused on freeing the world of corruption.
Hailing from Kenya, Githongo was an investigative journalist focused on bribery and fraud in his home country. He was a columnist for The East African between 1995 and 2003, and worked as a correspondent for The Economist, among other publications.
Throughout his career, he has held a variety of government, non-government, and academic appointments.
Under President Mwai Kibaki, he served as Kenya’s anti-corruption czar and unearthed a billion-dollar scam involving some of the country’s top ministers. He fled Kenya for fear of his life and lived in exile in the United Kingdom from 2005 until 2008.
His work leading up to his time in the UK was the subject of the book, “It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower,” by Michela Wrong, and cited by the New York Times as a “fast-paced political thriller—with echoes of Graham Greene and John le Carre.”
Since 2010, he has been the senior advisor on governance to the Office of the President in South Sudan. Other notable accomplishments include posts at World Vision International, St Antony’s College Oxford, the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG), the Africa Institute for Governing with Integrity, and Freedom House--to name a few.
Githongo said his time at MIT will be "a period of reflection and writing on the many of the assumptions we held in the 1990s as liberal democracies were introduced across Africa have ended or become irrelevant. What we always discussed as tomorrow's challenges have arrived and define public life today on the world's youngest continent." He will also interact with faculty and students and participate in seminars and events.
“We are delighted to welcome John Githongo to CIS. He is a recognized leader in efforts to promote greater integrity in government, especially in Kenya and other African countries. He will contribute greatly to our intellectual community. We hope he finds his time at MIT equally rewarding,” said Evan Lieberman, director of CIS and Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa.
Githongo holds an honors degree in economics and philosophy from the University of Wales and an honorary doctorate from the Open University.
The Robert E Wilhelm fellowship is reserved for individuals who have held senior positions in public life. By bringing real world experience and new scholarship to CIS, these fellows are a vital part of our research community. Working together with our scholars and students, they help facilitate and augment research that addresses policy-relevant problems.