Kyatengerwa Christelle is a water resources management and engineering professional, with nine years of practice with Directorate of Water Resources Management, Ministry of Water and Environment. She is currently based in Mbarara City at the Ministry?s regional office, as a Senior Water Officer managing water resources planning and regulation activities for water users and communities within the Lake Victoria Basin area. Through this work, she is able to interact with various stakeholders ranging from national leadership, development partners, local governments, civil society, private sector players to local communities.

Her work includes planning of self-supply as an extensive and sufficient alternative to water supply in rural areas through permitting motorized pumping of groundwater resources, and regulating waste water discharge monitoring activities to ensure permit conditions are complied with according to the set national standards and site-specific conditions. She also has experience in the provision of technical assistance to the Water Policy Committee, a statutory body that advises Cabinet on the various water related issues in Uganda, for formulation, review and coordination of amendments of policies, laws, and regulations in national and trans-boundary water resources? use and protection.

She holds a Master of Science Degree in Water Resources Engineering from Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea, through which she made a scientific publication on the drought trends and the plausible solutions for it in Uganda (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2019.124348). To that end, she developed and is currently leading a donor-sponsored pilot project promoting water allocation, regulation and resource protection through use of smart/digital water monitoring equipment in Uganda. The system provides real-time, automated groundwater daily abstraction and water levels, and through use of this data to regulate this action, will substantially increase water-use efficiency and decrease water scarcity through sustainable withdrawals from underground sources.

Christelle is passionate about watershed protection, sustainable development, and simple innovations/technologies in improving the water situation and livelihoods among rural communities. She volunteers as a mentor for girls and young women in STEM cohorts under the Girls4Girls mentorship program and believes that showing young people exemplary leadership and empowering them, will make them the drivers and advocates of the change we need to see in Uganda and Africa. It is her hope that one day, through good leadership, policy advocacy and good governance, ecosystems will be protected and humans made more resilient, to risks and shocks of the prominent problems of water, environment and climate change at local, national and regional level.