Mrs. Botho Kebabonye Bayendi is a strategic leader and governance professional with over 20 years of experience in institutional transformation, policy development, strategic management, performance management, and sustainable development. She currently serves as Director of Strategic Planning and Delivery in the African Union Commission (AUC) under the Cabinet of the Chairperson. She leads the coordination, implementation, monitoring, and reporting of Agenda 2063 and its alignment to other frameworks especially the UN 2030 Agenda, SDGs. She coordinates continental development priorities outlined in the two Agendas in collaboration with African Union Organs and Technical Offices, Member States, Regional Economic Communities, United Nations system and other AU partners. Her main achievement in this role has been coordinating a diverse Technical Working Group, made up of technical experts across the AU and UN Systems and AfDB for the development of the Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan (STYIP) of Agenda 2063, dubbed the Decade of Acceleration, under the joint implementation delivery model “One Agenda, Two Frameworks”. The model bridged the gaps between the African Union and United Nations delivery systems by fostering greater alignment, coordination, and collaboration of programmes into National Development Plans and Sub-National plans across the AU Member States and had eased reporting, Monitoring and evaluation of the two Agendas.

Mrs. Bayendi regularly represents the African Union at high-level engagements, side events, multilateral policy dialogues and other regional sustainable development forums across national, regional, and international audiences. Prior to joining AU she held several senior executive positions, in diverse industries, including Chief Executive Officer of the, internationally affiliated, Botswana National Olympic Committee and Executive Director, Business Intelligence at the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre, Botswana Qualifications Authority, Botswana Housing Corporation, National Productivity Center among others. She was entrusted in Board portfolios of Botswana Medicines Regulatory Authority, ABM University College and currently the Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). Botho believes in continuous learning, currently pursuing a Doctor of Transformational Leadership with Bakke Graduate University, USA. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Strategic Management from the University of Derby, United Kingdom, BA (Statistics and Demography) – University of Botswana. Her work is driven by a commitment to strengthening governance, institutional excellence, and a passion for Africa’s sustainable development agenda, “towards the Africa we want”.