World Mission names regional liaison for Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Hery Ramambasoa is a native of Madagascar

by Kathy Melvin | Presbyterian News Service

Hery Ramambasoa has been named World Mission’s regional liaison for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. (Contributed photo)

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Hery Ramambasoa is World Mission’s new regional liaison for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. His home base will be Suva, Fiji, so he can easily travel throughout the region.

Ramambasoa has extensive experience supporting mission co-workers in a cross-cultural context and over 20 years’ service in diplomacy and project management, including a position with USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A native of Madagascar, he has worked with the PCUSA’s long-time partner, the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM), as a board member of the development department focusing on rural development, water, sanitation, disaster risk management and environmental Justice. He spent four years as an advisor to the Council of Christian Churches in Madagascar and worked as executive officer of the National Council of FJKM. Other voluntary positions including acting as an advisor to the mission and evangelism departments.

He said he believes the new position with World Mission is a natural progression of the faith-based projects he has been involved in since his teenage years.

“Since my youth I’ve been interested in other cultures,” he said. “I believe my early involvement with the student Christian movement shaped my career path.”

Professional achievements include advising a major investor in the Madagascar oil and gas sector as well as a consulting for international relations and public affairs, based in France. He worked for the government of Madagascar as a councilor in charge of public affairs at the Embassy of Madagascar in Berlin, covering seven countries in northern Europe. He was an economic and political assistant at the U.S. Embassy in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and a press and publications assistant at the U.S. Information Service in Antananarivo. In the early 1990s he worked in rural development for USAID where he developed economic and sociological surveys, evaluating local community capacity to manage renewable resources. He is one of the founders and past associate general secretary of the Independent Election Monitoring Association of Madagascar.

He attended the Universite de Haute Bretagne in Rennes, France, earned a diploma in journalism and cross-cultural communication from Selly Oak Colleges at the University of Birmingham in Great Britain and achieved a master’s level in solidarity-based economy from FLEPES in Paris.

Ramambosoa speaks English and French. His native language is Malagasy.

He is married to Noro, a senior transport specialist in an international development organization. They have a daughter, Miora and a son, Ando. Both are in college.