Bhekinkosi Moyo is the Executive Director of the Southern Africa Trust. He is a renowned writer, author, researcher and thought-leader with keen interest in questions of African resources, democracy and governance. Bheki as he is fondly called, has championed African discourse on philanthropy, contributed to the growth of African civil society formations and has taken part in most of continental processes of development and governance.

He has written extensively on African philanthropy, civil society and governance. He was also instrumental in setting up the Dakar base for Trust Africa, where he was the Program Director.

Bheki serves on various boards.

Sheila Muwanga graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work and Social Administration, specializing in women’s rights. She was touched by the situation of poor and vulnerable people when she was a social worker, and decided to engage in work that would provide them with social and legal support as well as help to give them voice. She volunteered with the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), a leading human rights advocacy organization in Uganda.

At FHRI, she worked with the Citizens Advice Bureau, and later as a project coordinator for the Access to Justice Project. She became the Deputy Director (programs) in 2006 and Acting Deputy Executive Director (Programs) in 2013. Outside of her role at the FHRI, she also founded an informal group of friends under an initiative called ‘Spreading Jesus’ Love’, which supports the children of women in Ugandan prisons. Ms. Muwanga has also committed time to supporting a social support centre called, ‘Come Let’s Talk’ which provides pycho-social support to women and children. Currently, she is the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Awareness and Promotional Forum in Uganda (HRAPF). In 2011, Sheila received an award from the Action Group for Human Rights and HIV AIDS (AGHA) for the support she rendered to the group in its formative years as well as her contribution to the fight against discrimination of persons living with HIV/AIDS. Ms. Muwanga was elected Vice-President of FIDH at the 38th FIDH Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2013. She was nominated by the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) which is a member organisation of FIDH.

Jane Serwanga is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. Until 2012, she served as the Deputy Executive Director and Head of Programmes – Federation of Women’s Lawyers (FIDA) Kenya. She is presently based at Equality Now, Africa. She has a demonstrated interest in human rights leading to her involvement in numerous interventions towards promoting access to justice and gender justice. She has been involved in provision of legal aid services and various advocacy and legislative reform projects.

She has served as a member of Kenya’s Attorney General’s Task Force on Implementation of the Sexual Offences Act and the National Steering Committee of the National Legal Aid and Awareness Programme. Ms. Serwanga has undertaken public interest litigation on account of systemic violations of women’s rights and through litigation has sought women’s representation in national leadership institutions and women’s right to health. She is part of the Equality Effect team that undertook (2010-2013) the landmark ‘160 Girls’ litigation project that sought state accountability in cases of sexual violence. Together with Interights UK, she pursued litigation before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in pursuit of women’s property rights. To aid litigation and other projects, she has participated in legal research initiatives in collaboration with Georgetown University’s International Women’s Law Clinic, University of California Berkeley, Eqaulity Effect, and Population Council. Ms. Serwanga is certified as a trainer in the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) ‘learn by doing’ method. She has served as the local coordinator and faculty member of Lawyers Without Borders trial advocacy training programs for Kenyan trial lawyers for Kenyan trial lawyers and prosecutors since 2008. As a member of the Coalition for an Effective African Court, she has trained lawyers on the African human rights systems and public interest litigation in various African countries. Ms. Serwanga holds a Bachelors of Laws (LLB) degree from Makerere University (Uganda), a post graduate diploma in Legal Practice from Kenya School of Law, and a Masters of Law (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa) degree from University of Pretoria (South Africa). She is certified in provision of Mediation and has recently taken an interest in human rights and the extractive industry.

Brian Kagoro was previously the Regional Programme Advisor for the UNDP’s Africa Governance and Public Administration Programme as well as Officer in Charge (ad interim) of the UNDP Africa Governance Team. A constitutional lawyer by training, he practiced law as partner at Kantor and Immerman, one of the leading law firms in Zimbabwe.

He was instrumental in the formation of several civil society groups, including: the National Constitutional Assembly; the NGO Human Rights Forum; Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition; and the Centre for Citizen Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU). Mr. Kagoro has served on boards of both private sector and civil society groups, including: National Foods Ltd, Workers Trust, Amani Trust, CCP-AU, Action Aid International Ghana, and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. In 2002, he became the Founding Director of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and was subsequently elected chairperson of the Crisis Coalition. In 2005, Mr. Kagoro was appointed Pan-African Policy Manager for Action Aid International, an international anti-poverty development agency headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has served as a Consultant for several Regional Organizations, including the African Union Commission (AUC), NEPAD Planning and Coordination Agency, and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

Dr. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is the Senior Legal Officer for the Africa Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative. He is a lawyer and advocate from Nigeria and also currently chairs the Governing Council of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission. Dr. Odinkalu received his Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to joining the staff of Open Society Justice Initiative, he was Senior Legal Officer responsible for Africa and Middle East at the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights in London, Human Rights Advisor to the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone and Brandeis International Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, Justice and Public Life of Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Dr. Odinkalu is widely published on diverse subjects of international law, international economic and human rights law, public policy, and political economy affecting African countries. He is frequently called upon to advise multilateral and bilateral institutions on Africa-related policy, including the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and the World Economic Forum. Dr. Odinkalu has extensive networks across Africa that have been built up over several years of working for human rights and social justice on the continent. He is associated with several non-governmental and academic institutions within and outside Africa. Among other affiliations, he is a member of the Human Rights Advisory Council of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, of the Boards of the Fund for Global Human Rights and of the International Refugee Rights Initiative. He is also the founder of the Section on Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) at the Nigerian Bar and member of the Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association.

Pascal K. Kambale worked in Open Society Foundations (OSF) Africa Regional Office for over 15 years, most recently in charge of coordinating OSF’s interventions and programming on international criminal justice in Africa. Pascal is educated in International Law, Humanitarian Law, and Constitutional Law from Harvard Law School in the United States and the University of Kinshasa in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He has over 25 years of experience working with respected national and international human rights organizations on a broad range of issues, from monitoring to reporting on human rights violations, as well as on human rights promotion and litigation. He has also worked with government agencies, AU institutions and the UN human rights system.
He gained extensive experience of human rights litigation, having practiced international criminal law in the DRC as well as in Senegal and Chad as part of the international committee for the prosecution of Hisein Habre. Pascal worked for Human Rights Watch (HRW) in their Campaign for the Establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) between 1999 and 2005. He worked as a human rights officer in the Guinean country office of the UNHCR in Conakry (2010); a member of an international Commission of Investigation into Post Election Violence (CIPEV) set up to establish facts and circumstances during the violence following the December 2007 elections in Kenya (2008); and a human rights officer with the UN Peacekeeping Mission to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in 2000.

Dr. Godfrey Musila holds a Ph.D in International Criminal Law and Justice (with a focus on the international criminal court) and a Masters degree in International Human Rights Law. He is Senior Lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Human Rights and International Criminal Law. He is also Adjunct Professor at Open University of Tanzania where he lectures on OUT’s LLM in International Criminal Law and Justice.
Dr. Musila has previously served in the capacity of Director of Research & Policy and Senior Researcher on Kenya’s Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission and the African Union’s Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan respectively. He has written and published widely on human rights, international criminal law & justice, and transitional justice experiences in South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan and DRC.

Agnes Ebo’o is the founder of the Citizens Governance Initiatives in Cameroon, a nonprofit association that promotes accountability and citizens’ participation in governance by using international law (including the African system), constitutionalism and constitutional rights as well as national laws as the foundation of its work. A pioneer in the promotion of freedom of information and open government in Cameroon, she has been involved in the creation of several regional initiatives that promote open government and the rule of law in Africa.

These include the Academy for Constitutional Law and Justice in Africa, a yearly summer program for the training of future constitutional law experts in Africa; and the Africa Freedom of Information Centre, a Pan-African NGO and resource centre that promotes the right of access to information across Africa through comparative research, regional advocacy, information-sharing, and capacity building. She is the Co-founder of the Gulf of Guinea Citizens Network, a network of advocates for participatory, transparent and accountable management of the natural resources in the Gulf of Guinea region of Africa. She is tech-curious and believes that the future of citizens’ participation lies in the ability of CSOs to work with techies to optimize content to share in channels that embrace technology. A lawyer by training, she holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Poitiers, France, and an LLM from the University of Wales Cardiff, UK. She is fluent in English and French and an aspiring Portuguese and Spanish speaker. (adapted from Open Knowledge Cameroon profile)

Therese Niyondiko is a women human rights activist and an independent consultant, with more than 15 years of professional experiences both in international organisations and NGOs, working on project management and gender mainstreaming within development policies and programs. Until recently, she worked as a Senior Programme Officer at UNEP/Division of Environmental Policy Implementation. There, her responsibilities included coordinating the Poverty-Environment Initiative’s (PEI) donor relations, facilitating resource mobilization, and providing technical support to regional and country programs, with a special emphasis on gender mainstreaming and poverty reduction.

Ms. Niyondiko has also worked with the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), focusing on gender mainstreaming in Great Lakes development programs and policies under the ICGLR Pact on Security, Stability, and Development. She particularly worked on promoting the ICGLR Protocol on the Prevention and Suppression of Sexual Gender Based Violence Against Women and Children in the region and it’s related Kampala Declaration on Prevention, Ending Impunity and Providing Support to SGBV victims. She previously led and managed the Executive Secretariat of the African Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), a pan-african women’s network working on advocacy for gender equality and women’s empowerment. During her professional career, critical components of her work have been strategic planning, engendering regional and international development processes and policies, facilitating training workshops, advocating for justice and human rights, monitoring and evaluation, and mobilizing resources from a diverse range of donors (International NGOs, UN agencies, Foundations and other grant making organisations). Ms. Niyondiko holds a Masters Degree in Communications Management from Coventry University’s School of Engineering in the UK, a Bachelor of Arts in Agricultural Economics from the University of Burundi, and a Diploma in Peace and Security in Africa from Uppsala University in Sweden. She is Burundian, and has excellent communication abilities in French and English.

Dr. Yitiha Simbeye Zinazile is a Lecturer in Law with the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) in Dar es Salaam and a specialist in International Criminal Law. Also, she is the current coordinator of the Masters in Law in International Criminal Justice (LLM ICJ). Previously, she was Head of the International & Constitutional Law Department from 2008-2011. Prior to that, she served as Duty Counsel with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on the Bizimana Special Deposition Hearing (2011-2012) and Defence Legal Assistant on the Ngeze Appeal (2006).

Dr. Zinazile was Dean of the Faculty of Law at Makumira University College of Tumaini University, and the first female Dean in Faculty of Law in Tanzania, between 2004-2006. Prior to that, she was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. She has published on questions of international criminal law, with a particular focus on immunities of state officials. Dr. Zinazile has a Ph.D. in law from Reading University in the United Kingdom, an LLM from King’s College, London, and an LLB from the University of Warwick, UK. She published the book Immunity and International Criminal Law, (Ashgate, 2004) and is an active and life member of the Pan-African Lawyers Union.

Dr. Albaqir Muqtar is currently the Director of al-Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment and Human Development (KACE). Until October 2006, he was a Senior Fellow with the US Institute of Peace (USIP) researching identity and conflict in Sudan. Prior to that, until September 2005, Dr. Muqtar was the Regional Campaign Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa in Amnesty International’s London office. He has taught linguistics and Middle Eastern studies.
He holds degrees in Linguistics from University of Khartoum (BA 1984, MA 1988), Aston University (Msc 1991), and in Middle Eastern studies from Manchester University (PhD 1997). He taught Middle Eastern Studies at the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) (1997-2001). In 1999, Dr. Muqtar was a research fellow at both University of Ghana-Legon and Northwestern University where he focused on the philosophical underpinnings of Sudanese identity and the civil war. Dr. Muqtar has worked in different research settings; academic, as in University of Jazira and MMU, as well as think tanks, where strategies and research are policy and action oriented, as in Amnesty International. In both of these capacities, he undertook supervisory roles.
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