Mary Mutinda
SDI Kenya Board of Directors
Mary Mutinda-Kipkemoi is a socioeconomic researcher with extensive work on securing adequate housing and social security in rapidly urbanizing Sub-Saharan Africa – a region that is grappling with the mutually reinforcing challenges of climate change, informality, inequality and pervasive poverty. She has conducted over 10 years of field work predominantly in the slums of Mukuru, Kiandutu; County level evaluations of Nairobi, Kiambu and Kericho in Kenya; as well as comparative national level engagements in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa gain an in-depth understanding of the household needs and social rationale that support authentic grounded solutions.
She currently works with UN Habitat contributing to the flagship World Cities Report and SDGs - analyzing the intersection of urbanization and socioeconomic wellbeing with a clarion call of “Leave No One and No Place Behind.”
Her academic background is mathematics and finance. She holds a BSc Actuarial Science from the University of Nairobi and an MSc in Mathematical Finance from the University of Manchester. Her PhD working title reflects the intersections of her experiences in finance, social security and urbanization: “Assets, Adaptive Strategies and Socio-Economic Transformation of the Urban Precariat.”