Must Read: ABA Abroad Column on William Hammink's experience as Former ABA ROLI Country Director for Libya and Tunisia

William Hammink spent 36 years with USAID before serving more than a year as ABA ROLI country director for Tunisia and Libya.

The recent ABA Abroad Column highlights William Hammink's former role as ABA ROLI's country director for Libya and Tunisia, based in Tunis, Tunisia, from May 2018 to May 2019.

Hammink is a recently retired career minister in the U.S. Senior Foreign Service who has 36 years of experience working with USAID, including as USAID mission director in Afghanistan, India, Sudan and Ethiopia, and assistant to the administrator for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hammink served in nine countries, including Afghanistan, India, Sudan, Ethiopia, Russia, West Bank/Gaza, Madagascar, Senegal and Swaziland.

"The ABA's Rule of Law Initiative demands the highest level of legal and judicial expertise to work with local legal and judicial authorities in totally different and challenging country environments. However, as I have seen as country director of the ROLI offices in Tunisia and Libya, ROLI is more than a team of global experts of lawyers and judges, but also an incredibly dedicated team of management, logistics, financial, security and systems experts working together to implement key rule of law and human rights programs with partners. 

I found that ROLI must be at the same time strategic, opportunistic, flexible and highly professional and ethical working in complex, many times post-conflict, countries to achieve results and continue to receive donor funding. Quite a challenge for anyone.

Like many other complex countries where ROLI works, Libya and Tunisia challenged me and the entire ROLI team almost daily. After 36 years with the U.S. Agency for International Development, working in nine different countries and managing several billion-dollar programs, including heading the USAID programs in Afghanistan, Sudan and Ethiopia, I found the ROLI Tunisia and Libya programs to be more complex, challenging, difficult and rewarding than I ever expected."

Read the full article, "ABA's rule of law work in Tunisia and Libya 'more complex, challenging, difficult and rewarding than I ever expected," written by William Hammink, Former ABA ROLI Country Director for Libya and Tunisia.

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