[2] She concurrently served as the elected Member of Parliament (MP), representing Amuru District Women's Constituency.

Following a ten-year stint in the Uganda Parliament from 1986 until 1996, she failed to win the parliamentary seat for Gulu Municipality in 1996 and left government service.

In 2011, fifteen years later, she bounced back by winning the parliamentary seat of Amuru District Women's Constituency, on the National Resistance Movement party ticket.

[3] In 1997, following her graduation from Harvard, she took up employment with the World Bank in Washington, DC, as a Senior Social Scientist with the Post-Conflict Unit.

In 1999 and 2000, Bigombe provided technical support to the Carter Center in a successful mediation effort between the governments of Uganda and Sudan.

Following the February 2004 Barlonyo massacre, Bigombe took a leave of absence from the World Bank and flew to Uganda to attempt to restart the peace process.

From March 2004 to 2005, Bigombe was the chief mediator in a new peace initiative with the Lord's Resistance Army, personally financing much of the logistics of bringing Ugandan government ministers and rebel leaders together.

[9] In May 2011, she was appointed by President Yoweri Museveni as State Minister for Water Resources, a position that she held until June 2014, when she resigned to take up her assignment at the World Bank.