Dr Emmanuel Nkurunziza is the Director-General of the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), an intergovernmental organisation with 20 contracting member states in Eastern and Southern Africa, with a mandate to harness Earth Observations and geospatial technologies in the advancement of its member states.
He took up the position at RCMRD in 2017 after an 8-year tenure as the Director-General of the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, a position he held concurrently with that of the Chief Registrar of Land Titles. Before this, he had worked in academia as a lecturer at Makerere University, Uganda and as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, UK. Dr Nkurunziza’s academic background is in geomatics engineering, with a BSc in Land Surveying from Makerere University, Uganda. He holds an MSc in Urban Planning from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK and a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Birmingham, UK.