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Secretary-General's MDG Advocay Group

Secretary General's MDG Advocacy Group

Paul Kagame

Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda

Paul Kagame,
President of Rwanda

His Excellency Paul Kagame was sworn in as President of the Republic of Rwanda for a second seven-year term in September 2010, following the country’s elections held on 9 August 2010.

Kagame was born in 1957 in Rwanda’s Southern Province. His family fled pre-independence ethnic persecution and violence in 1960, crossing into Uganda where Kagame spent thirty years as a refugee.

Determined to resist oppressive regimes, as a young man, Kagame joined current Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and his group of guerrilla fighters to launch a war to free Uganda from dictatorship. Under the new government, he served as a senior military officer.

In 1990, Kagame returned to Rwanda to lead the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) four-year struggle to liberate the country from the autocratic and divisive order established since independence.

Led by Kagame, the Rwanda Patriotic Army defeated the genocidal government in July 1994 and the RPF subsequently set Rwanda on its current course towards reconciliation, nation building and socioeconomic development.

Kagame was appointed Vice-President and Minister for Defence in the Government of National Unity on 19 July 1994, and four years later was elected Chairman of the RPF, a partner in the Government of National Unity.

On 22 April 2000, Kagame took the Oath of Office as President of the Republic of Rwanda, after being elected by the Transitional National Assembly. Three and a half years later, in August 2003, he won a landslide victory in the country’s first-ever democratically contested multi-party elections.

President Kagame has received recognition for his leadership in peace building and reconciliation, development, good governance, promotion of human rights and women’s empowerment, and advancement of education and information and communication technologies (ICT).
He is widely sought after to address regional and international audiences on a range of issues including African development, leadership, and the potential of ICT as a dynamic industry as well as an enabler for Africa’s socioeconomic transformation.

Paul Kagame is married to Jeannette Nyiramongi. They have four children.

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