Halima Begum
Halima Begum works for the Department for International Development (DFID). She is currently in Nepal leading the UK's work on education. She will be moving to Beijing in April 2009 to work on promoting collaboration with China on international development issues and Africa, ensuring lessons from China's success inform international understanding . Previously in London she led the UK's engagement on the global education partnership known as the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) set up by bilateral and multilateral agencies to push for faster progress on education . 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 Regional Director of the C.S. Mott Foundation’s Civil Society Programme for Central/Eastern Europe and Russia. 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. Shannon oversees the Foundation’s annual $12 million grantmaking program promoting citizen engagement and philanthropy development in 14 countries throughout the CEE/Russia region. Shannon is responsible for the Foundation’s Special Initiatives – International program area, which supports philanthropy efforts throughout the world, primarily through community foundations and global membership organizations.
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 Honorary President of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, an international alliance of organisations dedicated to strengthening citizen participation and civil society worldwide. Kumi was the founding director of the South African NGO Coalition and served on the task team which drafted new NGO legislation. He has also worked extensively in adult education and has done social and economic justice work in South Africa. He has published several articles on NGOs, civil society and youth and resistance politics in South Africa.
As an activist of the African National Congress, he was expelled from school at age 15 for his anti-apartheid activities and went into exile for a number of years. He returned to South Africa in the early 1990s and was centrally involved in the first democratic elections in 1994.
Kumi holds a doctorate in political science from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He currently serves as the chairperson of the Partnership for Transparency Fund, which supports civil society efforts to eradicate corruption, and is a board member of the Association for Women's Rights in Development. He was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to the Panel of Eminent Persons on UN Civil Society Relations and is also a member of the steering committee of the World Economic Forum’s Global Governance Initiative. He chairs the Global Call to Action against Poverty campaign.
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.