Arcadia Foundation

Betty Bigombe

Betty Bigombe is currently the President of Arcadia Foundation. A foundation set up to combat corruption. During her effort to end the war in northern Uganda, she realized that among other things corruption fuelled and prolonged the war.

Otherwise Bigombe is best known for her work as “chief mediator” in the northern Uganda conflict. She has tirelessly played the role of peace advocate and advisor to the warring factions, and been a voice to the international community for the people of northern Uganda in a conflict that has lasted over 20 years; caused death to thousands of people; seen over 80,000 children abducted and turned into child soldiers; and displaced about 1.7 million people.

Ms. Bigombe’s latest peace effort was launched in 2004 when she arranged the first ever face-to-face meeting between government representatives and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). She helped create a multi-prong effort that included traditional leaders, women, youth, and the international community in a dramatic push to end the 20 year old war. This initiative resulted in the ongoing peace talks between the government of Uganda and the LRA being held in Juba, south Sudan.

In 2006 Bigombe returned to the United States as a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and later as a Distinguished African Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute. While conducting research on her forthcoming book, Bigombe continues to work on the issues of mediation, peace-building, transitional justice and the empowerment of youth, and continues to play an advisory role to those involved in the Juba Peace Talks. In addition she works with international donors and local NGOs to equip the people of northern Uganda with tools for achieving a sustainable peace.

Bigombe began her quest for peace in Uganda in 1992 when she was appointed to the post of Minister of State for Pacification of North Uganda and tasked by President Museveni with ending the civil war that had broken out there. Moving her office out of the capital city and into the war zone, Ms. Bigombe worked to address the roots of the conflict. She soon realized that a military solution would not bring sustainable peace; and Bigombe initiated contacts with the reclusive rebel leader Joseph Kony in a daring visit to his camp that eventually led to the peace talks of 1993/4. As a peace activist Bigombe was named “Uganda’s Woman of the Year” in 1994 for her efforts to end the violence. The promising talks eventually collapsed when the government decided to pursue a largely military strategy against Ms. Bigombe’s advice.

She later went to work at the World Bank as a Senior Social Scientist with the Bank’s newly created Post-Conflict Unit and then worked in the Bank’s Social Protection and Human Development Unit. In 1999-2000, Bigombe provided technical support to the Carter Center in a successful mediation effort between the governments of Uganda and Sudan.

Ms. Bigombe holds a BA from Makerere University, Kampala and a received a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She is a recipient of many awards in recognition her efforts to end the war in northern Uganda. Recent awards include the United Nations Association International Day of Peace Award; the Tanenbaum International Center, Inter-religious Understanding award. She has appeared in the film “Uganda Rising” and the recent PBS documentary entitled “Lord’s Children,” and serves on the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Advisory Council of the World Economic Forum.

She continues to lobby on the issues of child soldiers and Ugandan’s post-conflict struggle to rebuild and she is often invited to share her experiences and analysis on mediation, conflict resolution, and development policy with a wide range of government officials, academics, conflict resolution practitioners, and policy leaders.

Robert Carmona-Borjas

Robert Carmona-Borjas is a Venezuelan lawyer and an expert in military affairs, national security, corruption and governance. In Venezuela, concerned with the issue of governability, the defense of human rights, democracy and the fight against corruption, he became an activist, disregarding the risks that such a stance implied. Following the events of April 2002, he was forced to abandon his country and seek political asylum in the United States of America, where he has continued his struggle for freedom and to advocate for accountability and transparency in government.

His passion and vocation for teaching began since 1989.In Venezuela, he taught at the Simon Bolivar University. In the US he created a course of Political Management in Latin America, which he taught to students from Georgetown University and The George Washington University in Washington DC. He also worked in the Department of Governance at the World Bank Institute.

Knowing that corruption was rampant not only in Venezuela, but around the world — and that it is the main factor that erodes democracy – Prof. Robert Carmona-Borjas decided to establish an organization that could counter such a major problem. He recognized that innovative, “next generation” anti-corruption strategies were needed to tackle corruption head on, as well as to develop close ties with local NGOs and civil society organizations to empower the people to preserve the integrity of democratic institutions.

With that in mind, Prof. Robert Carmona-Borjas founded Arcadia Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to fight corruption and promote democracy in the world. Prof. Robert Carmona-Borjas has launched several anti-corruption efforts through Arcadia Foundation in Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela and Uganda. In Honduras, Arcadia has registered unprecedented success: Its work has assisted the judicial branch in making corrupt culprits accountable for their actions

Professor Carmona-Borjas is the author of “Cuba: asedios, utopías y otros bloqueos” (Vestigios, Mexico, 1994) [Cuba: Sieges, Utopias and Other Blockades], and “Más Allá de la Génesis del 11 de Abril” [Beyond the Genesis of April 11] and is also a columnist for many prestigious newspapers such as El Nuevo Herald (Miami), El Heraldo (Honduras), El Universal (Caracas), La Prensa (Managua), Tiempo Latino (Washington) and the independent TV network Globovision (Venezuela).

Please feel free to contact Robert Carmona-Borjas at rcb@arcadiafoundation.org.

Its in Our Hands to Create Change.