Fostering Human Rights and Good Governance in Fragile States

After six years as chair of Burundi independent human rights commission, Dr Sixte Vigny Nimuraba, was able to lead Burundian Government to improve human rights situation, to release a high number of prisoners and to punish some of the people who were enjoying total impunity. In addition, the government was collaborating better with the human rights council and other united nations bodies by submitting reports on human rights allegations. On his side, the human rights commission had improved his finance management, governance and partners across the globe. Unfortunately, since 2022, serious false accusations of mismanagement of funds and attacks were directed to the chair of the commission. In 2025 he was able to flee the country and received asylum in Switzerland. In this discussion, he will present the major innovation, he brought at the commission and the attacks he received during the six years and how he was able to resist during all that time and why the government could not file any complaint against him even after he had left Burundi because the systems he put in place as well as regular external audit showed that there was transparency throughout those years and every activity could be traced and documented.

Speaker: Dr Sixte Vigny Nimuraba, (Former Chair of the Burundian Independent Human Rights Commission 2019-2025)