Patrice Mugenzi is the new Minister of Local Government, replacing Jean-Claude Musabyimana, who had served in the same capacity since November 2022.

Born in 1972, Mugenzi was appointed to head the ministry by President Paul Kagame, on October 18.

The Ministry of Local Government has a mission to ensure the coordination of good governance and high-quality territorial administration programmes that promote economic, social, and political development throughout the nation.

ALSO READ: Kagame picks new local government, agric ministers

Before his latest appointment, Mugenzi was the Director General of Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA), a position he held since August 2023.

Mugenzi brings 15 years of experience as an agribusiness management specialist. Among others, he has worked as a consultant, researcher, and expert in managing multidisciplinary projects with a focus on socio-economic research, supply and value chain analysis, rural finance, and agribusiness.

He holds a PhD in agribusiness management from Egerton University, the oldest institution of higher education in Kenya, which he got in 2022 after obtaining a master's degree from the same university in 2014.

His career has been dominated by being an academician - he has been a lecturer and scientific researcher at the University of Rwanda's College of Agriculture, Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine for 16 years, since February 2008.

Areas of interest for his research are cooperative development and management, agribusiness and entrepreneurship development, agricultural marketing, rural finance, agricultural value chain finance, inclusive business models in agriculture, and the impact of public private partnership for agribusiness development, according to his profile on LinkedIn.