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.

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.

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

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

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).

Nathaniel Danjibo is a senior research fellow with the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies at the University of Ibadan. He obtained his PhD in political science from the University of Ibadan. Dr Danjibo has co-authored 4 books among which is the widely cited Religion and Development in Nigeria, which he co-authored with Insa Nolte and Abubakar Oladeji. He has also published in journals such as the Journal of African Elections, African Notes, Journal of Research for Development, Ibadan Journal of Peace and Development, Journal of Islamic Sects, Strategic Review for Southern Africa, Africology, Brazilian Journal of African Studies and Journal of Asian and African Studies. Dr Danjibo consults for the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC), the West African Network for Peacebuilding and the UNDP. He is also a faculty member of the West African Peace Institute (WAPI), a fellow of the Society for Peace Studies and Practice (SPSP) and a fellow of the Institute of Chattered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC). Dr Danjibo is the current President of the Society for Peace Studies and Practice.

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.