The Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities (RALGA) General Assembly, on June 6, approved Dominique Habimana as its new Secretary General. He replaces Ladislas Ngendahimana who resigned a few weeks earlier. ALSO READ: RALGA unveils new technology to monitor SDGs in districts Ngendahimana had served as Secretary General since 2018. ALSO READ: RALGA awards best performing districts With over 18 years’ experience in international development, the new RALGA Secretary General was previously serving as the Senior Governance Programme Officer at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s Great Lakes regional office in Kigali. He was overseeing a diverse portfolio of programmatic and strategic interventions aimed at supporting accountable democratic governance. Habimana has a Masters’ Degree in Development Studies obtained from University of Rwanda in 2014, an Executive Masters in conflict and fragility management, obtained from the Geneva Graduate Institute in 2022 and a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences obtained from Universite Libre de Kigali in 2006. He is known for his tactful strategic leadership abilities and extensive work supporting decentralisation, civil society and state engagement on public policies, inclusive governance, economic development, conflict management, human rights, women and youth empowerment. Habimana has also contributed to small and medium enterprises development and is skilled in moderation of strategic reflections and planning, with working skills in English and French, as well as moderate knowledge of Swahili. During the past five years at SDC, he led the expansion of the agency’s governance portfolio by successfully introducing new programmes on civil society and state engagement on socio-economic public policies, advancing ‘business and human rights’, media sector conducive regulatory frameworks and professionalization, strengthening of local conflict resolution mechanisms Abunzi, inclusive local governance, and regional dialogues for peace, among others. He contributed to the active coordination of the Governance and Decentralisation Sector Working Group in Rwanda. During the Covid-19 period, he led the design of SDC’s response in the Great Lakes region that provided Small and Media Enterprises with recovery support. Previously, Habimana served as a senior expert for the GIZ’s decentralization and good governance programme, responsible for coordinating the implementation of Germany-Rwanda bilateral commitments for strengthening good governance in Rwanda. Prior to that, he worked for Trocaire, an Irish international NGO, managing projects on livelihoods for vulnerable households, capacity development for microfinance institutions. He has also worked at World Relief where he supervised and managed various projects supporting inclusive finance for women and youth that contributed to advancing the Village Saving and Loan schemes and microfinance models. Habimana brings more than 18 years of strategic leadership and management of international development at national, regional and international levels grounded in good understanding of international relations, good governance principles and contemporary development issues. He holds a wide-reach experience from multi-stakeholders’ engagement having closely collaborated with various government institutions; mainly the ministries of local government, and ministry of finance, the Rwanda Governance Board, and international bilateral cooperation entities including the governments of Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, US, and UK, and several multilateral actors including the EU, and UNDP. He has a good understanding of African governance contexts.
