Kenyan media personality and entrepreneur Adelle Onyango has launched a new Pan-African podcast series examining how women lawyers are shaping justice systems and institutional reform across Africa.
The six-part weekly series, Difference She Makes, is hosted by Onyango on the Legally Clueless platform and is produced in partnership with the Pan-African movement Difference She Makes. The podcast brings together women legal leaders from Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria to discuss how power operates within legal institutions and how reform is driven beyond courtrooms.
According to the producers, the series focuses on law as a lived system shaped by professional structures, culture, leadership norms, and institutional decision-making, rather than legal theory alone.
“This series is much more than women succeeding in law,” Onyango said. “It is about what happens when women are trusted with power and when their voices shape institutions and society.”
Across six episodes, the podcast examines practical drivers of legal and institutional change, including constitutional reform, strategic litigation, professional ethics, and movement building.
Featured guests include Anne Ireri, outgoing chief executive officer of the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA Kenya); Zikhona Ndlebe, a South African lawyer and researcher; Ruth Tanui, founder and managing partner of Ruth Tanui and Co. Advocates; Natasha Ali Errey, advocate of the High Court of Kenya and chairperson of the Mombasa Law Society and Law Society of Kenya Coast Branch; Odunoluwa Longe, partner and co-founder of Nigerian law firm TLP Advisory; and Sibongile Ndashe, founder and executive director of the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA).
In the opening episode, Ireri reflects on the role women lawyers played in Kenya’s constitutional reform process leading up to the 2010 Constitution, highlighting collective organising during negotiations.
“They were at the negotiation table making sure women’s aspirations were represented,” she said.
Olivia Maina of Difference She Makes said the series positions women’s leadership in law as a governance issue rather than a symbolic milestone.
“Reform only becomes real when women are part of shaping, interpreting, and sustaining institutions,” she said.
Episodes of Difference She Makes will be released every Friday for six weeks on Legally Clueless platforms, including YouTube and major podcast services such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The launch is supported by a coordinated media and digital campaign across Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
