Allan Achesa Maleche is a Kenyan human rights lawyer and Advocate of the High
Court of Kenya with over fifteen years of experience working at the intersection of
health, human rights, law, and governance. He is the Executive Director of the Kenya
Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN), where he has led
rights-based legal and policy work aimed at improving access to health and justice
for communities that are often marginalised and excluded.
Allan’s work is grounded in close collaboration with affected communities, particularly
people living with HIV and tuberculosis, women and girls, and other populations
facing structural barriers to health care and justice. His approach combines strategic
litigation, community legal empowerment, participatory research, and policy
advocacy, with a strong emphasis on ensuring that lived experience informs legal
reform, accountability, and institutional practice within health systems.
He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Gender Advisory Panel of the
UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research,
Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP) at the World
Health Organization, contributing to global guidance on gender equality, rights, and
ethics in sexual and reproductive health research and policy. Allan has also served
as Co-Chair of the UNAIDS Human Rights Reference Group and is a member of the
International AIDS Society–Lancet Commission on Health and Human Rights.
Allan has held senior governance roles within global health financing and
accountability structures, including as a Board Member of the Developing Country
NGO Delegation to the Global Fund Board, where he also served as an Alternate
Board Member and as a member of the Audit and Finance Committee.
In Kenya, Allan has been involved in landmark strategic litigation advancing health-
related human rights. This includes Daniel Ng’etich and Others v. The Honourable
Attorney General and Others, a precedent-setting case that successfully challenged
the incarceration of people with tuberculosis as a public health measure. He has also
played a leading role in landmark cases addressing the forced and coerced
sterilisation of women living with HIV, contributing to legal and policy reforms that
strengthen informed consent, accountability, and rights-based standards in health
care. Under his leadership, KELIN conducted Kenya’s first Tuberculosis Legal
Environment Assessment in 2018, which continues to inform national and regional
advocacy and law reform.
Allan is the inaugural Belén Ríos Global Health and Human Rights Scholar and
holds an LL.M. in Global Health Law from Georgetown University. He regularly
engages with governments, UN agencies, regional bodies, and civil society actors,
while remaining closely connected to community-level struggles, ensuring that global
and national health responses are accountable, inclusive, and firmly grounded in
human rights.
