Biography
Active in both her nation’s parliament and its peace process, Betty Amongi-Ongom has served Uganda in a variety of ways. She is the chair of the Uganda chapter of AMANI, also known as the Great Lakes Parliamentary Forum on Peace; and she chairs the observer mission to the Juba peace talks between the government and the LRA. She is also Uganda’s delegate to the African Caribbean and Pacific-European Union Joint Parliamentary Assembly (ACP-EU-JPA).
As an opposition member of parliament, Ms. Amongi-Ongom was one of only five women who agitated for the Ugandan constitutional change from one-party system to a multi-party system, which was introduced in Uganda in 2005. She is a women’s rights advocate, a peace builder, and a critic of the current government policies in Uganda. She is an independent member of parliament.
Ms. Amongi-Ongom has also served as the coordinator of the Northern Uganda Women’s Forum since 2004. She has been Uganda’s expert on democracy, good governance, and gender in the UN/African Union Conference on Peace and Security in the Great Lakes Region since 2004. From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Amongi-Ongom was the publicity secretary for the Uganda Women Parliamentary Association; as of 2006, she is the finance secretary for the Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians. Ms. Amongi-Ongom holds a master’s degree in international relations and diplomatic studies.
(1.2007)