Judy Kamanyi is a social development, governance and gender equality specialist and is a women and child rights advocate with over four decades of work experience in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. She is a Fulbright Fellow and an alumna of Makerere University Uganda; the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the United Kingdom, and the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego, USA with a Master’s degree in Peace and Justice Studies.

She engaged with and supported the work of UN Women, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations International Children’s Fund and United Nations Population Fund on gender equality programming. She was instrumental in mainstreaming gender in the peace support operations in the African Union peace and security architecture and coordinating a multi-stakeholder joint programme on gender equality that included several UN agencies, government ministries and civil society organisations in Uganda.

Judy Kamanyi supported the African Union Commission Women, Gender and Development Directorate to mainstream gender in the African Union multi-dimensional peace support operations on the continent with funding from UN Women at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Facilitated a gender training for members of the African Peace Support Trainers’ Association.

She facilitated the development of the Agreement on Accountability and Reconciliation (Agenda Item 3) of the Juba Peace Agreement between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army, which required the Uganda Government to establish both formal and non-formal justice mechanisms to address accountability and reparations for atrocities committed in Northern Uganda.

Between 2006 and 2008 Judy Kamanyi contributed to the inclusion of traditional justice mechanisms for restorative justice in judicial discourse in Uganda. She contributed to the preliminary conceptualization and proposal for the establishment of a “Hybrid Justice System” with Special Courts, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Traditional Justice Systems to secure transitional justice. She has contributed to several publications on women leadership in conflict transformation, and women’s participation in elective politics.

She has served on the governance boards of Action Aid Uganda, Action Aid Malawi, Uganda Child Rights NGO Network, Nnabagereka Development Foundation and African Centre for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, and TPO Uganda. Currently serving on the Board of AfriChild, chairing the Promoters Council of TPO Uganda and serving as a Trustee to the Nnabagereka Development Foundation.