The Kenyan Human Rights Commission has appointed Davis Malombe as the new executive director.
In a statement by board chairman, Prof Makau Mutua, Malombe who has been acting in the same capacity will replace George Kegoro who left the organisation last year.
“Malombe has been an integral colleague at the KHRC as Program officer and Deputy Executive Director. He is well known in the NGO sector where he has distinguished himself as a key leader and organizer in the fields of human rights and good governance at all levels in society,” Mutua said.
He noted that Malombe has a wealth of experience in addressing sensitive and complex questions which require the confrontation of the state and vested interests that are related to basic constitutional and human rights.
“His leadership will be especially critical as we enter the electioneering period,” Mutua added.
Kegoro left KHRC in November last year to take up a new role as the executive director of the Open Society Initiative for East Africa.
"Starting this week, Kegoro will become the Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA). The disappointment is not that he is leaving us for OSIEA. Rather, it is that all good things must somehow come to an end," he said.
"But we are comforted that while Kegoro will not be at the KHRC, he will still be in the civil society sector, and we will continue to work with him in that capacity."
He had served as KHRC executive director for five years.
