David Himbara​​
Biography
David Himbara is a distinguished Educator, Author, and Coach specializing in Socioeconomic Development and Governance. As an Affiliated Scholar at New College, University of Toronto, Canada, he brings a wealth of expertise and insight to the field. Additionally, as the Founder and Principal of the Governance Institute of Rwanda, Himbara is dedicated to fostering sustainable development and effective governance practices that make a real difference in communities.
Himbara is Laureate of the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Prize for Democracy and Peace, 2017.
Previously, Himbara taught at several universities in North America and Africa including the University of Witwatersrand’s Graduate School of Public and Development Management in South Africa from 2010 to 2013. While there, Himbara led a team that succeeded in bringing the World Bank’s Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) to the university, where the program supports governmental clients throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In 2011, Himbara served as a lead consultant for the African Development Bank in Tunisia in 2011, and in 2010, he served as chief strategist for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in South Africa. In addition, between 2011 and 2013, Himbara worked as a lead consultant at the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
A Rwandan-Canadian, Himbara spent a total of six years working for Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame: from 2006 to 2009 as the head of strategy and policy in the Office of the President and from 2000 to 2002 as the principal private secretary to the president.
From 2002 to 2006, Himbara worked in South Africa, where, among other projects, he was the lead consultant for teams that conducted the country’s Ten Year Development Review. Himbara was a valued member of Knowledge Management Africa that coached government evidence-based policymaking.
Himbara returned to Rwanda in 2006 after President Kagame offered him a leading role focused on socioeconomic development. Tasked with improving national competitiveness, Himbara spearheaded efforts that ultimately improved Rwanda’s ranking in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report from 143rd to 67th out of 183 countries; Rwanda was named top reformer by the World Bank’s Doing Business Report, 2010. In this phase, Himbara set up and headed the Strategy and Policy Unit, Office of The President.
In this capacity, he led the establishment of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and was its founding Chairperson. He also led the setting up of the Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR), and became its founding chairperson. In addition, Himbara was the chairperson of the World Bank-funded Human and Institutional Development Agency (HIDA).
Prior to his time in Rwanda, Himbara was based in South Africa working as a private consultant; major assignments included lead consultancy on trade and investment harmonization for the Southern African Community and lead strategist on Indonesian export policy into South Africa. He also lectured on economic development as a senior lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand from 1994 to 1997 and was an assistant professor at Southern University in Louisiana, USA, from 1991 to 1993.
Himbara completed his PhD in political economy at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in 1991. He is widely published on social and economic development in leading journals and online. Himbara’s dissertation on the role of domestic entrepreneurs and the state in socioeconomic transformation was published as a book in 1994: Kenyan Capitalists, the State, and Development. His other works include Kagame’s Economic Mirage, published in 2016 and Rwanda Stillborn Middle Income Economy, published in 2020.
Support for LivenBooks
​All advances and proceeds for my memoir, Our Man Is Finished: Kagame's Rwandan State of Himself Collapsing, are dedicated to supporting Gabriel Ndayishimiye. Gabriel reminds me of decades earlier. I arrived in Canada as a young broken Rwandan refugee and transformed myself into an educator. Gaby, too, arrived in Canada, after surviving the Rwandan military. Forced to flee with his family, he journeyed through Burundi, Tanzania, and Malawi. This memoir comes to you, thanks to Gabriel’s publishing house, LivenBooks.
Latest Publication
Toronto, Canada – When David Himbara began to serve in Kagame’s powerhouse, he initially thought Rwanda was a military regime. This was not the case — the Rwandan military was Kagame himself. Next, Himbara imagined Rwanda to be a one-party state. This was not the case — the ruling party was Kagame himself. Himbara then reasoned that the Rwandan business elites dominated the government. Under no circumstance would this hold — Kagame’s business empire had swallowed up Rwanda’s private sector. Kagame’s Rwanda is a state of himself.
Himbara’s memoir takes the reader step by step of how the land of the thousand hills became Kagame’s Rwandan state of himself with his wife Mrs Jeannette Nyiramongi as the power behind the throne. Kagame systematically destroyed public, private and civil society institutions, while at same time unleashing violence and death that devastated Rwandan leaders across the board. Kagame’s brutal acts to gain total control of the people of Rwanda surpass any ruler sub-Saharan Africa has ever witnessed.
Kagame’s bloodshed did not spare his presidential staff — Himbara’s former workmates were routinely assaulted and even killed while in state custody, died mysteriously or perished in exile. Himbara survived numerous attempts on his life, especially after Kagame declared him, in a presidential speech in Parliament, that he is criminal who twice deserted his duties.
As of March 2025, however, Kagame’s state of himself is collapsing, faced with near total isolation, condemnation, and sanctions by the Western powers that previously supported him. Our man is finished — the warmongering and looting of DRC and the repression inside Rwanda finally caught up with the lone-ranger totalitarian dictator.
