Kirabo, appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is the governor of Eastern Province, the largest province in Rwanda, with a population of 2.5 million. Previously, she was mayor of Kigali City, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. Kigali won the UN Habitat Scroll of Honor Award in 2008 for its cleanliness, green qualities, safety and housing initiatives under Kirabo’s leadership.
Kirabo was also a member of Parliament specializing in land use and management, settlement and environment.
In her new role, she is deputy to Dr. Joan Clos, a Spaniard and UN Habitat’s executive director.
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland, The Hague and Cyprus). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
