Louise Mushikiwabo

Louise Mushikiwabo (born May 22, 1961) is a Rwandan politician and diplomat who is the fourth and current Secretary-General of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). She previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 2009 to 2018. She also served as Government Spokesperson. She had previously been Minister of Information (2008–2009).

On 12 October 2018, Mushikiwabo was elected for a four-year term to the position of OIF Secretary-General at the 17th Summit of Francophonie in Yerevan, Armenia. She was re-elected on 20 November 2022 in Djerba, Tunisia.

== Early life ==

Louise Mushikiwabo was born on 22 May 1961 in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Her father was Bitsindinkumi, from the Batsobe clan; Bitsindinkumi worked as a farmer, managing the family's smallholding as well as working as bookkeeper for a colonial coffee plantation. Her mother was Nyiratulira, a first cousin of the Abiru philosopher and historian Alexis Kagame. She spent her childhood in Kigali. The youngest of nine children, her siblings included Lando Ndasingwa, who became a notable businessman and politician in Rwanda before being killed in 1994 during the Rwandan genocide, and...