Congolese Official Elected ICGLR Deputy Executive Secretary for Programmes

Bujumbura, Burundi, August 1, 2026 - A selection jury meeting in Bujumbura chose Congolese official Mazita Bovy Héritier as Deputy Executive Secretary of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), a post focused mainly on managing the organisation’s regional programmes and projects. Héritier currently serves as a director at the Service d’Assistance et d’Encadrement du Small Scale Mining (SAEMAPE). The vote comes while the Democratic Republic of the Congo holds the ICGLR presidency for 2025-2027, an institution that gathers Great Lakes states around peace, security and development.

Kinshasa presents the appointment as another diplomatic gain that places a Congolese cadre in an executive function inside a regional body whose agenda intersects with the eastern security crisis. Programme oversight at the ICGLR covers cross-border cooperation tools that member states use on security, resource governance and development projects. Officials frame the election as consolidating Congolese influence on dossiers that matter for the country’s neighbourhood diplomacy.

The timing is politically useful for Kinshasa as it seeks stronger regional channels while peace tracks with Rwanda and the AFC/M23 remain contested. Héritier’s mining-sector background also sits close to themes the DRC has pushed internationally on natural-resource governance and conflict economies.