Elie Hakizumwami is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Country Manager. He is responsible for overseeing WRI’s activities in DRC in relation to forest monitoring, forest management and legality, restoration, and land use planning. His major responsibilities include oversight of program and partnerships implementation, staff management, fundraising, and thought leadership.

Elie is a holder of MSc in Natural Resources Management and Post-Graduate Diploma in Forestry for rural Development from the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Science (ITC) in Enschede, The Netherlands. He has a wealth of multidisciplinary experience in natural resource management across many countries in Africa, and he speaks French, English, Swahili and Kinyarwanda. His areas of experience include: integrated natural resources management, forestry governance and certification; landscape restoration; institutional partnerships building, development and implementation of strategies and programmes, protected areas management; thematic studies for natural resources management, and organization and moderation of fora, and strategic advocacy.

Before joining WRI, Elie worked as Director for TRAFFIC in Central Africa; Forest Landscape Restoration Policy Specialist for IUCN in West and Central Africa; Senior Regional Project Monitoring and Evaluation and Forest Advisor for Central Africa for CIDA, Director of the Forest Stewardship Council’s Regional Office for Africa and WWF Regional Forest Officer for Central Africa and, Central Africa Senior Consultant for PROFOREST.