President Paul Kagame has appointed four senators to the Rwanda Senate. The appointees include the outgoing Senate President Francois Xavier Kalinda, and three new members.
The three include Dr. Usta Kayitesi, former CEO of Rwanda Governance Board(RGB) who was replaced this month and Solina Nyirahabimana who was Minister of State in Ministry of Justice.
The fourth member who is little known in Rwandan politics, but a veteran international activist is Bibiane Mbaye Gahamanyi.
Gahamanyi is a Human Rights advocate with a multicultural background (Rwandan and Senegalese national, fluent in French, English, Kinyarwanda and Kiswahili) and has extensive expertise and experience across a wide range of Rights and Development issues.
She has mainly worked on International Human Rights Procedures, International Trade Agreements, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), Gender Equality issues, International Cooperation and Development, Civil Society, and other non-state actors engagement in policy making and policy implementation.
She has held different senior positions in INGOs (International Planned Parenthood Federation IPPF; Oxfam GB; Action Aid International AAI) and regional NGOs (Environment and Development Africa ENDA; Union For Africa Population Studies UAPS; African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies ACDHRS) and was based succesively in Banjul/The Gambia, Dakar/Senegal and Nairobi/Kenya.
The Rwanda Senate, also known as higher chamber of Rwanda Parliament is an institution with 24 members, including twelve senators that are elected by the electoral colleges in national administrative entities, two senators from political parties’s forum and two more representing universities and higher learning institutions.
The president appoints eight members to the senate in the logic of four senators in two separate years.