Rita Abrahamsen is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. She is the author (with M.C. Williams) of Security Beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and the Good Governance Agenda in Africa (Zed Books, 2000), editor (with A. Leander) of Routledge Handbook of Private Security Studies (Routledge, 2016), and Conflict and Security in Africa (James Currey, 2013). Her articles have appeared in leading journals including African Affairs, Alternatives, International Political Sociology, Journal of Modern African Studies, Political Studies, Security Dialogue, Third World Quarterly, and Review of African Political Economy. She was joint editor of African Affairs, the highest ranked journal in African studies, from 2009 to 2014. Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Prof. Abrahamsen was in the Department of International Politics at the University of Aberystwyth, and she has been a visiting fellow at the University of Cape Town, the European University Institute in Florence, the University of Queensland in Brisbane, the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo, the Centre for Advanced Security Theory (CAST) at the University of Copenhagen, the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS), Queen Mary University of London, and the University of Sydney. She also chairs the advisory board of the SSRC’s African Peacebuilding Network (APN) program.

Steve Akoth is a Kenyan scholar, advisor and activist trained in anthropology and law who does work on subjects of land, multiple justice systems, and urbanisms. He has contributed on these subjects in numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is currently a faculty member at the Kenyatta University in Kenya where he teaches a course on human development in the Department of Applied Economics. His current research project is on southern urbanism that engages the dialectics of the so-called “Slums Upgrading.” He just completed a manuscript for his second book on the Meaning of Obama in K’Ogello. Dr. Akoth is an alumnus of the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa program, having a received a completion fellowship in the program’s first cohort (2012). He is also the current chair of the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Advisory and Selections Board.

Afe Adogame is the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Religion and Society at Princeton Theological Seminary, USA. He is also Professor Extraordinaire at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Adogame’s broad teaching/research interests include interrogating new dynamics of religious experiences and expressions in Africa and the African Diaspora; the interconnectedness between religion and migration, globalization, politics, economy, media, and the civil society. He has published extensively in these and related themes. His most recent book publication is Indigeneity in African Religions: Oza Worldviews, Cosmologies and Religious Cultures (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). He currently serves as Project Chair and Co-Director of Engaging African Realities: Integrating Social Science within African Theology, a $2.4 million grant awarded by the Templeton Religion Trust (TRT), hosted by Nagel Institute, Calvin University (2021-2024). He also served as Regional Project Leader (Africa) in the Modernization, Megachurches and the Urban Face of Christianity in the Global South, a $1.9 million grant awarded by the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and hosted by Canisius College (2020-2022).

Nana Akua Anyidoho is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Social Policy Studies (CSPS) at the University of Ghana. Her research focuses on the ways in which marginalized social groups (in particular, young people and women) respond to globalizing and neo-liberalizing policy structures in their struggles for social and economic rights. Given the complexity of the person-policy nexus, she brings an interdisciplinary perspective to her research: she has a BA in Psychology (1997) from the University of Ghana and a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy (2005) from Northwestern University, with additional training in African Studies, statistics, economics, and in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. She has published in development studies, gender studies, and African studies journals, and is on the editorial boards of African Affairs, African Review of Economics and Finance, and Policy Studies

Prof. Anyidoho has taught and supervised graduate students for 16 years. She was Coordinator from 2017 to 2019 of the Pan-African Doctoral Academy (PADA), which supports doctoral training on the African continent.

She serves on the Executive Committee of the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the Board of Directors of the African Studies Association, and the Governing Council of the University of Ghana. She is the immediate past President of the Ghana Studies Association (GSA). 

Details of her projects, publications and professional service can be found at anyidoho.me

Kasaija Phillip Apuuli is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Makererere University Kampala, Uganda. He obtained his doctorate degree in international law at University of Sussex, United Kingdom. His research concentrates on issues of international law, peace and security, and regional integration in Africa.

Arsène Brice Bado is Vice-president for academic affairs and international relations, and professor of political science and international relations at CERAP/Université Jésuite in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Prior to his time at CERAP, Bado was a Southern Voices Network (SVN) Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.. in 2015. He was also a visiting researcher at Yale University during the 2014-2015 academic year, and the 2017-2018 Anna and Donald Waite Endowed Chair at Creighton University in Omaha, USA. His research interests include democracy, ethnic pluralism, conflict analysis, forced migration, electoral processes in conflict-ridden societies, and foreign aid in Africa. His publications have appeared in the Journal of International Migration and Integration, the Journal of Modern African Studies, Mediterranean Politics, Revue Études, Revue Relations, Débats-Courrier d’Afrique de l’Ouest, and La Civiltà Cattolica. In addition, he has contributed chapters to several books; in 2015 he edited a book titled Dynamiques des guerres civiles en Afrique: Une approche holiste, Paris: L’Harmattan. He is the author of Dignity across Borders: Forced Migration and Christian Social Ethics, Denver (Colorado): Outskirts Press, 2010; La citoyenneté mondiale et l’écocitoyenneté dans le context de la crise sanitaire à COVID-19, Abidjan: Editions du CERAP, 2022. He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Laval University in Canada in 2016.

Cedric de Coning is a Research Professor with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) Center on UN and Global Governance, where he coordinates the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON) and leads the Climate-related Peace and Security Risk (CPSR) project. He is also a Senior Advisor for the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) where he is the Managing Editor of the African Journal of Conflict Resolution and Chief Editor of ACCORD’s COVID-19 Conflict and Resilience Monitor. He holds a PhD from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch. His research focusses on strengthening the resilience and sustainability of social-ecological systems under pressure from climate change, conflict and other stressors. He has served in a number of advisory capacities for the African Union and United Nations, including on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board for the Peacebuilding Fund and as an advisor to the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission for the Peace Fund.

Dereje Feyissa Dori holds a doctorate in social anthropology from Martin-Luther University in Halle, Germany. He was a Research Fellow at Osaka University in Japan; the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, both in Germany. Dereje has worked as a research professor at the International Law and Policy Institute (ILPI) and was attached to ILPI’s Centre for African Studies as the Africa Research Director. He served as the Senior Research Advisor to the Life and Peace Institute (LPI), Horn of Africa and Ethiopia Programs. Dereje has taught in several universities, including, Haramaya (formerly named, Alemaya), and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Other include, Martin Luther and Bayreuth Universities in Germany and Osaka University in Japan. He was also an APN (African Peacebuilding Network) Individual Grant Recipient in 2016. Dereje is currently an adjunct associate professor on the PhD program at the Centre for Federal and Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University, a Co-Investigator (CI) for the Ethiopia-South Africa Migration Corridor as part of the UK-based Migration for Development and Equality (MIDEQ) South-South Migration Research Hub, a Co-I for the GLOW research project (Global Norms and Violence against Women in Ethiopia), hosted by the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)and a member of the Advisory Board of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Dereje has published extensively on a wide range of topics from ethnicity, ethnic federalism and conflict; borders and borderlands; religion and politics; pastoralism; the political economy of development; migration and transnationalism, to violent extremism and the response(s) to it. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including, Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa (London: James Currey, 2010), Playing different games: the paradox of the identification strategies of the Anuak and Nuer in the Gambella region of Ethiopia (New York and London: Berghahn Books, 2011), and, Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reform (Los Angeles: Tsehai Publishers, 2020). He has also authored over fifteen articles in peer-reviewed journals and over thirty chapters for edited volumes. Dereje has also consulted for international organizations such as the World Bank; DFID, UNDP, UNICEF, and EU-TF/REF.

Fiifi Edu-Afful is a Senior Research Fellow and the Deputy Program Head of the Peace Support Operations Programme at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC). He was an Adjunct Lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He also serves as a Faculty Member on the MA Program in Defence and International Politics at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC). He has nearly 10 years’ experience authoring, teaching and facilitating on conflict, peace and security. Between 2013 and 2014, he served as an Advisory Team Member for the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in UN peacekeeping. Furthermore, he has also served as a lead facilitator and consultant for the African Centre for the Study & Research on Terrorism (ACSRT/CAERT) and has been a specialist on KAIPTC courses on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) in Fragile, Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations. He is a 2013 laureate for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Dakar Senegal. He is currently undertaking research on inclusive peacebuilding and peacekeeping exit frameworks, Domestic Security Implication of UN peacekeeping and improving Response Capacities to Terrorism in Peacekeeping Theatres.

Eunice Kamaara, a professor of African Christian Ethics, is an ethicist with over thirty-year experience in transformative research for holistic health development. She is passionate about mainstreaming gender, diversity and inclusivity values and in translating research findings into practical development through policy influence and community engagement. She has more than 100 publications. She co-directs the African Character Initiation Programme, a community based and community participatory organization on mentorship of adolescents for health and values, recognized by the World Health Organization among the Top 30 2019 Africa Health Innovations

Godfrey Maringira is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. He teaches Social Anthropology. He is a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Anthropology and Development department. He is also an advisory board member of the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa – SSRC. He is a three time APN grantee: Individual Research Grant (2014), Book Manuscript Grant (2018) and the Working Group Grant (2016). He was also awarded the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa (2012 fieldwork and 2013 Completion grant). He is a senior Volkswagen Stiftung Foundation research fellow and is also a Principal Investigator of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) research on Gang violence in South Africa. His areas of research include: armed violence in Africa with a specific focus on the military in post-colonial Africa. His 2017 African Affairs Journal article “Politicisation and resistance in the Zimbabwe national Army”, was awarded the best author price in 2018. In 2020 he was awarded the Benedict Vilakazi best author price, African Studies Journal (Routledge) for his article titled: “When combatants became peaceful: Azania People Liberation Army ex-combatants in post-apartheid South Africa”. He is the author of ‘Soldiers and the State in Zimbabwe’, Routledge, 2019.

Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni is Professor and Chair of Epistemologies of the Global South with Emphasis on Africa at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. He is also a member of the selections and advisory board of the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa. He previously worked as Research Professor and Director of Scholarship in the Department of Leadership and Transformation (DLT) in the Principal and Vice-Chancellor’s Office at the University of South Africa (UNISA), South Africa. He previously headed the Archie Mafeje Research Institute for Applied Social Policy (AMRI) at the University of South Africa.He was also the 2019 Visiting Professor at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). He is a leading decolonial theorist with over a hundred publications in the fields of African history, African politics, African development and decolonial theory. His latest major publications are , ‘The Decolonial Mandela: Peace, Justice and the Politics of Life (Oxford & New York, 2016), Decolonizing the University, Knowledge Systems and Disciplines in Africa, coedited with Professor Siphamandla Zondi, (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2016), Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization (Routledge, July 2018); Rethinking and Unthinking Development: Perspectives on Inequality and Poverty in South Africa and Zimbabwe (Berghahn Books, March 2019) coedited with Busani Mpofu; and Decolonization, Development and Knowledge in Africa: Turning Over A New Leaf (Routledge, May 2020).

Henrietta Nyamnjoh is a researcher with the South-South Migration, Inequality and Development Hub at the University of Cape Town. She holds an MPhil degree in African Studies/Development Studies and Doctor of Philosophy both from Leiden University. Her research within the hub focuses on Childhood migration and Inequalities, to understand the levels of inequality faced by unaccompanied Ethiopian Children during their migration journey and in the host country. She has researched extensively on female migrants and recently completed a study titled ‘Migrant Margins: City-Making Across Durable Borders’ which explores the everyday lives of Congolese women. Before this, she also did more research on childhood, focusing on the left-behind children of Cameroonian economic migrants in Cape Town. Her research interests include migration and mobility, transnational studies, and migration and health. Additionally, she is also interested in understanding religion in the context of migration. Henrietta has researched and published widely on migration, transnational studies, migrants’ economy and everyday lives, food and migration, religion in the context of migration and Hometown associations.

Christine Noe is an expert on conservation and development politics and seeks to explain how local and international development politics influence rural livelihoods, land tenure and tenure and security dynamics in Tanzania. Her academic background and current research activities points to the accumulated skills and experience in this area of expertise. In the recent years, she has focused on conservation partnerships, trans-frontier conservation areas and rural livelihood changes. She is a sole author of recent publications on “Regionalizing Tourism using Trans-frontier Conservation Areas in Southern Africa (2020), “Berlin Curse in Tanzania’s Selous World Heritage Site” (2019) and “Graduated Sovereignty in Tanzania’s Mineral Sector” (2019). Dr Pallangyo is also the co-author of “Public and Private Authority Interactions in Conservation and Development” (2020) with Stefano Ponte and Asubisye Mwamfup. She is also actively involved in providing leadership in research collaborations and mentorship of young African scholars.

Stephen Del Rosso (ex-officio) is director of international peace and security at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, where his work focuses on a range of issues including peacebuilding, nuclear security, and the dynamics of global power. He was director of programs at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations from 1996 to 1999 and managed the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Security program for almost six years. A former career diplomat, Del Rosso served nearly ten years in the U.S. Foreign Service with overseas assignments in Central America and the Caribbean. In Washington, he served in the Operations Center and on the Executive Secretariat staff of Secretary of State George Shultz, as program coordinator of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and as arms control legislative management officer and director of the Office of Legislative Management. He was also a Presidential Management Intern in the international affairs division at NASA, news producer for the Voice of America, and staff assistant to British Member of Parliament Julian Critchley. Del Rosso holds a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania; an MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he was an Earhart Fellow; a diploma in international studies from the Bologna Center of Johns Hopkins SAIS; and a BA from Tufts University. He serves on several not-for-profit boards and is a member of various international affairs–related membership organizations.

Rawia Tawfik is an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in politics from the University of Oxford. She was a visiting research fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA), and a researcher at the German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in Bonn. Her research interests include, African development, regional integration, and resource-based conflicts, especially conflicts over transboundary rivers in Africa, and the Nile basin in particular. Her work on these issues have appeared in leading international peer-reviewed journals, including African Studies, Water Alternatives, Water International, Water Policy, and The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs. Rawia has also contributed chapters on regional security complexes, Nile hydropolitics, and foreign policy of African regional powers, to several edited books, including, Foreign Policy in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Security, Diplomacy and Trade, edited by Adekeye Adebajo and Kudrat Virk (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2017); and, the Routledge Handbook on Middle East Security, edited by Anders Jagerskog, Michael Schulz and Ashok Swain (London and New York: Routledge, 2019). She was a recipient of the APN Individual Research Grant in 2017, and the African Studies Association (ASA) Presidential Fellowship in 2018. She is an associate editor of the Review of Economics and Political Science, a peer-reviewed open access journal by Emerald Publishing Services on behalf of Cairo University.

Egodi Uchendu is a Professor of History and International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria (FHSN), the Royal Doyen Academy (FRDA) and Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL). She researches African gender relations, conflict situations, and Islam in Eastern Nigeria among others. Her book, Islam in the Niger Delta, 1890-2017: A Synthesis of the Accounts of Indigenes and Migrants (2018), won the African Studies and Research Forum (ASRF) 2020 runner-up book prize. Uchendu has held several fellowships, awards and grants, and served on several academic Boards. Professor Uchendu is widely published. Her latest publications include Witchcraft in Africa: Meanings, Factors, and Practices (2023); Nigeria’s 2019 Democratic Experience (2022) Negotiating Patriarchy and Gender in Africa: Discourses, Practices, and Policies (2021 & 2023), and Nigeria’s Resource Wars (2020). Professor Uchendu presides over the African Humanities Research and Development Circle (AHRDC) (www.ahrdc.academy) and coordinates the #Don’t Litter Initiative, a sustainable waste management networking initiative with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office and Access Bank Nigeria. Additional information about her career is available at www.egodiuchendu.com.