International Advisory Group

Halima Begum

Halima Begum works for the Department for International Development (DFID). She is currently located in Beijing where she works on promoting collaboration with China on international development issues and Africa, ensuring lessons from China's success inform international understanding. Previously she worked for DFID in Nepal and in London she led the UK's engagement on the global education partnership known as the Fast Track Initiative (FTI). She's also worked at the Centre for Civil Society, at the London School of Economics where she managed a comparative study of social capital; at Action Aid she worked on a multi-country campaign on basic rights; and was also a Policy Analyst on the Runnymede Trust's Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (2000). Halima started her career working for a number of grassroots groups in the East End of London with Bangladeshi young women.

Halima has a BSc in Government and an MSc in International Relations. Her PhD examined culture, creativity and the politics of space in Spitalfields. She taught on an MSc on Globalisation & Development/City Cultures course at Queen Mary-University of London. She is a fluent speaker of Bengali- Sylheti.

Tom Carothers

Thomas Carothers is the Vice President for Studies – International Politics and Governance, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Tom is a leading authority on democracy promotion and democratization worldwide as well as an expert on U.S. foreign policy generally. He is the founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project which analyzes the state of democracy in the world and the efforts by the United States and other countries to promote democracy. In addition, he has broad experience in matters dealing with human rights, international law, foreign aid, rule of law, and civil society development.

Tom is the author or editor of seven critically acclaimed books on democracy promotion as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers. He is a recurrent visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest and serves on the board of various organizations devoted to democracy promotion. Prior to joining the Endowment, Carothers practiced international and financial law at Arnold & Porter and served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.

Michael Edwards

Michael Edwards is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos in New York, a Visiting Senior Scholar at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Brooks World Poverty Institute at Manchester University. Until recently he was the Director of the Governance and Civil Society Program at the Ford Foundation in New York and prior to this he was the Senior Civil Society Specialist at the World Bank in Washington D.C, where he led a program designed to improve the agency's understanding of, and engagement with, a wide range of civic groups. Michael has also spent 15 years as a manager in international relief and development NGOs, including periods with Oxfam-UK (as regional director for Southern Africa), and Save the Children-UK (as director of research, evaluation and advocacy).

Michael’s many books and articles have helped to shape our thinking about NGOs, civil society and international cooperation. His book ‘Future Positive’ was nominated for the Chadwick Alger Prize for the best book on international affairs and the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Promoting World Order. His recent book ‘Civil Society’ will be key in informing the work of the Inquiry.

John Gaventa

John Gaventa is a political sociologist, educator and civil society practitioner with over 30 years experience of research, training and organisational leadership in the North and South. Currently he is a Professor and Research Fellow at IDS, where he is a member of the Participation, Power and Social Change team and Director of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. He has written widely on issues of power, participatory development and governance, civil society and social change. Before coming to IDS in 1996, John was the co-director of research and Director of the Highlander Centre, an NGO with over seven decades of experience in working on poverty and social justice issues in poor regions of the United States. John also serves as Chair of Oxfam Great Britain.

Shannon Lawder

Shannon Lawder is Director of the C.S. Mott Foundation’s Civil Society Programme. The Mott Foundation is a private, U.S grantmaking foundation promoting a just, equitable, and sustainable society in the U.S. and select regions of the world.

Prior to joining the Mott Foundation in 1995, Shannon was International Program Director at the Olga Havel Foundation in Prague, Czech Republic, where she coordinated international assistance programs to help people with disabilities and chronic illnesses in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. She is proficient in Russian, Czech, and German, and has served on several committees at the European level, including the European Foundation Centre’s steering committees for the Grantmakers East Group and the Community Philanthropy Initiative.

Kumi Naidoo

Kumi Naidoo is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International. An anti-apartheid activist from the age of 15, he has been involved in struggles to advance social, economic, political, gender and environmental justice.  He was the founding executive director of the National Literacy Coalition in South Africa, the founding director of the South African NGO Coalition, the Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation.  His volunteer roles have included being the founding chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (www.whiteband.org), Chair of the Global Campaign for Climate Action (www.tcktcktck.org) and Chair of the Partnership for Transparency Fund (www.partnershipfortransparency.org).  In 2003, the United Nations Secretary General appointed him to serve on the Eminent Persons Panel on UN-Civil Society Relationships.   He served five years on the Board of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. He has worked tirelessly to unite different parts of civil society and to build bridges across various divisions that impact on the effectiveness of civil society.

Gerry Salole

Gerry Salole is Chief Executive of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) in Brussels. The EFC is an international association that promotes and serves independent funders active in Europe. Salole assumed his post in September 2005 having worked as the Ford Foundation’s top representative in South Africa since 1999, where he oversaw projects to reduce poverty, increase racial equalities and strengthen democracy. Throughout his professional life, Salole has been interested in community development issues and is considered a specialist in the field. His career has included working at the Bernard van Leer Foundation, Save the Children Federation, and Oxfam.