Promoting enlightened engagement between Africa and
America through education, training and dialogue.

Ms. Betty Bigombe

Betty Bigombe

Title: Senior Fellow
Company/Organization: Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program, The United States Institute of Peace (USIP)

Program:Partners for International Education and Training (PIET)
Degree: Master's in Public Administration
Year Completed: 1997

Betty Bigombe is currently a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where her project focus is the Challenge of Managing Mediation: The Northern Uganda Experience. Ms. Bigombe has been involved in peace negotiations in Uganda to end the Lord's Resistance Army's (LRA) insurgency since the early 1990s. A former Member of Ugandan Parliament, Ms. Bigombe was appointed by Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni to serve as Minister of Stated for Pacification of Northern Uganda, tasked with persuading the LRA rebels to give up their arms and end the fighting. During the height of the conflict in 1993, Ms. Bigombe initiated contact with rebel leader Joseph Kony. This initiative gave birth to what would become known as the "Bigombe Talks", which brought the LRA and government ministers face to face for the first time. In 1994, Ms. Bigombe was named "Uganda's Woman of the Year" for her efforts to end the country's violence.

Since the official collapse of the peace talks in 1994, Ms. Bigombe—who is one among the few individuals with credibility among both rebel and government forces—has continued to urge and facilitate engagement between key individuals on all sides of the conflict with a view toward achieving a peaceful resolution. Ms. Bigombe has also been a consultant in the Social Protection, Human Development And Post Conflict Units at the World Bank, and she has also been called upon to assist with peace negotiations in the Sudan.

In 1997, Ms. Bigombe received an AAI-administered Partners for International Education and Training (PIET) fellowship. She attended the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she earned a master's degree in public administration. She holds a bachelor's degree from Makerere University in Uganda. She has co-authored several articles on post-conflict peace-building and the impact of armed conflict on women and children.