Dr. Fassil Gebeyehu
General Coordinator
Dr. Fassil Gebeyehu Yelemtu (Ethiopia), is the General Coordinator of ABN. He leads a lean team at the ABN Secretariat to support running the network’s affairs daily.
Before joining the ABN Secretariat, Dr. Fassil served as a Team Leader of the Youth Development Programme in Ethiopia’s Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD). Besides the out-of-school youth, this school program with elementary and high school students introduced ideas about bicultural diversity. The program was implemented in various regions of Ethiopia and had exceptional value to youth. It connected them with their indigenous knowledge and built their capacity to perform better in their school education. At ISD, Dr. Fassil took an additional Head of Finance and Administration role in ISD Management.
As a social science researcher, he has polished skills in exploring complex data with many qualitative methodologies, including free listing, ID exercise, participant observations and various forms of structured besides unstructured interviews. He has long-term and progressive experience in the environment, community development, policy issues, ethnographic exploration and analysis of multiple aspects of contextual findings through coding and qualitative software such as Nvivo.
Dr. Fassil is a graduate of Earth Jurisprudence (EJ), a three-year course offered by the Gaia Foundation. EJ course equipped him with the philosophy of governance and Law, which recognizes that Earth is the primary source of Law that governs life. This philosophy promotes that the human community should comply with these laws for the well-being of the whole Earth Community and future generations.
His academic and practical engagements in life have led him to understand different forms of knowledge and inspired by the lawfulness of the Earth/Nature. Dr. Fassil is a Board Member of a child of ABN, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). He holds a Master’s Degree in Conservation and Tourism from the University of Kent and a Ph.D. in Anthropology Development from Durham University in the United Kingdom. Dr. Fassil is a dad to two daughters and a son.
Jane Kinya
Finance & Administration
Jane Kinya (Kenya), Coordinates the Finance and Administrative functions of ABN. Since joining the ABN Secretariat in 2009, she has led organizational and network assessments, developed and overseen the implementation of comprehensive capacity development plans, set financial management and administration training manuals for programs and has an excellent appreciation of computerized financial management systems.
She has a working knowledge of donor reporting requirements after successfully managing multi-donor funds, including quality control, accountability and impacts. Over the years, Jane has developed a passion for program implementation functions. She derives joy interacting with the communities besides working with women farmers for seed sovereignty in Africa.
Jane has skills in Human Resources and Office Management. She has over fourteen years of experience in Finance, Administration and Consultancy Services at national and regional levels. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Kenyatta University besides Certification by Public Accountant (CPA) and Information Systems Auditor (CISA). She is a mum to many!
Hannah Kigamba
Monitoring and Evaluation
Hannah Kigamba (Kenya), handles the Monitoring and Evaluation functions of ABN, ensuring the programme progress is aligned to the network’s philosophy and keeping track of achieving the ABN’s agreements with the various financing partners.
Hannah believes in proper planning and strategic execution plans to feed into a result-oriented design which she holds firm. As a development practitioner passionate about working with communities, she sees that networking achieves sustainable impacts. ABN provides a platform for African organizations and communities to network, learn and make significant impacts, an approach that drew Hannah to join ABN.
She is self-motivated, a good communicator and a team player. Experienced in handling diverse aspects of project management for 10 years, she has dealt with proposal development, implementation and M&E besides project reporting. Hannah has been a part of a team designing community projects, seeing the transformation and inclusion of women and youth in community projects to inspire sustainable development.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies from Mount Kenya University (MKU) and a diploma in community development and social work with several professional short courses with the main focus on M&E. Hannah is results-oriented, pushes herself to the limit and believes each team player should aspire to do the same for the teamwork to thrive and achieve the organizational goals. The saying inspires her, “We can only go far if we go together.”
During her free time, Hannah enjoys spending time with her family, especially her son and listening to music from her community.
Janet Mwikya
Administrator
Janet Taabu Mwikya (Kenya) is the ABN Administrator. She has a background in Human Resources Management from the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) with skills and knowledge in finance & admin and Computer Maintenance and Repairs. She has an experience in Administrative Management of more than seven years. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA, part II) and continuing to learn accounting to refine her skills in this area further. Janet easily adapts to different cultures; hence she interacts with individuals and partners freely. Her passion for culture and traditions has seen her working with the youth on various levels. She is the former Country representative for the International Youth Diplomacy Conference (IYDC) 2020-2021. Her hobbies are cooking, travelling and listening to music, besides spending time with her family.
