Research Areas

Shiam Vidurupola

2011-10-01T09:02:25Z

Shiam Vidurupola a specialist in conflict with three decades of experience. He is Security Sector Reform Expert in the United Nation’s Roster and a retired Colonel from Sri Lanka army experienced with complex conflict. He is skilled in higher strategy and policy on counter terrorism, counter insurgency, intelligence cooperation and mediation.With the United Nations he has been a Technical Advisor on military-rebel integration / reintegration / rehabilitation; a Planning Consultant on peace-building and recovery with the UNDP; and a Senior Military Advisor with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in field deployments.

He had developed SSR networks conducting cross cultural educational programs with multi disciplinary groups in Asia. He served as a diplomat in London for four years from 1999 working with international defence and security agencies, academic think tanks and law enforcement agencies working on criminality, migration, rights, Diasporas, displacement, conflict transfformation and recovery. With an academic background in international relations his research interest concerns the participation of women and children in violence within rebel organisations. He is fluent in English, Sinhala, Bahasa Indonesia and understands Tamil, Hindi and Nepali.

vidurupola@yahoo.com

Henry Kwami Anyidoho (Rtd. Maj-Gen)

2009-08-04T04:35:53Z

Deputy Joint Special Representative for the United Nations- African Union Hybrid Operations in Darfur (UNAMID)

Born on 13 July 1940 at Tanyigbe in the Volta Region of Ghana, General Anyidoho was commissioned into the Ghana Army Signal Corps in 1964. He had extensive Military education in several institutions in the United States of America and served for several years in various capacities in the Ghana Armed Forces including: Commanding Officer of the Ghana Military Academy, Directing Staff at the Ghana Armed Forces Command & Staff College and Commander of the Northern Command of the Ghana Army. His Service with UN among others include: Chief Military Press & Information Officer for United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon; the Deputy Force Commander and Chief of Staff of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda 1994/95. After Forty-one years of military service, he represented ECOWAS in UN Disarmament Assessment Mission for Sierra Leone in 2002 and subsequently undertook research assignment in 2003 with King’s College, London on the Conflicts in Sierra Leone. Thereafter, he headed UN Observers for Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission and was the Coordinator of UN Support to AU Mission in Sudan.

General Anyidoho is currently the Deputy Joint Special Representative for the United Nations- African Union Hybrid Operations in Darfur (UNAMID). His literary works include: Guns Over Kigali published in Accra 1997; contributions to the books Peacekeeping in Africa edited by Jakkie Cillers and Greg Mills first published by the Institute of Defence Policy, South Africa 1995; Out of Conflict From war to Peace in Africa edited by Peter Vale and Gunnar Sørbø and sponsored by Chr. Michelsen Institute and Nordiska Africa Institute Norway 1997 and A Dialogue of the Deaf: Essays on Africa and the United Nations edited by Adekeye Adebajo and Helen Scanlon published in South Africa in 2006. He is decorated with DISTINGUISHED SERVICE ORDER FOR GALLANTRY. General Henry Anyidoho is married, has grand-children and is a patron of the Ghana Heart Foundation.

Salma Abbasi

2009-08-04T04:12:21Z

Chairperson of the e worldwide Group and member of the United Nations International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) High Level Experts Group (HLEG) for cyber security

Salma Abbasi has nearly 30 years experience in the field of technology and business process reengineering. Salma started her career in 1981 in Silicon Valley as a design engineer for AMD and rapidly progressed holding a series of diverse executive management positions in fortune 500 companies; engineering, manufacturing, quality assurance and reliability, international business development and customer satisfaction. This rich experience has given her unique capabilities, knowledge and understanding to think outside the box in multiple cultures, difficult situations and in times of crisis, to create opportunities, and win-win scenarios for all. This led Salma to form the e Worldwide Group in 2001. The Group is a dynamic consortium of 37 successful companies, universities and organizations focused on providing multiple services and solutions in 4 key areas; Sustainable Development and Empowerment, Alternative Energy, Recycling and Environment, Security and Resilience, and Management Consultancy.

She was awarded a senior associate research fellowship in the International Policy Department at King’s College University London in 2002 and has now 2009 become a senior associate fellow at the CSDG. She is also an associate member of Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies (RUSI), which is dedicated to addressing security & resilience issues. In 2007, she became a member of International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) High Level Experts Group (HLEG) for Security, which is working on defining national level security strategies and policies for cyber crime and security. Salma is also working in collaboration with ITU on a global initiative that protects children from the negative elements in cyber space which she designed in 2008. She has also created a unique concept for the holistic transformation of Madaris to promote interfaith harmony, understanding and social-economic development for youth from multiple societies and cultural back grounds.

Salma Abbasi is working in collaboration with the Chair of the British Government Women’s Taskforce, Rt. Hon. Baroness Uddin, the first Muslim member of the House of Lords, to support the organization in the capacity of a strategic advisor to address the under representation of Black Asian Minority Ethnic women (BAME) in public life. She is supporting the organization in driving holistic capability building and training of local ‘women’ councillors from minority ethnic groups to enable their effective engagement at various local and national platforms to create a sustainable space for their ‘voices’ to be heard

Salma Abbasi has recently joined the High Level Adviser’s Panel of the United Nationals Global Alliance for Information Communication Technologies and Development (UN GAID). GAID is focused on providing an inclusive, multi-stakeholder global forum and platform for policy dialogue and partnership-building to promote the use of ICTs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and to enable multi-stakeholder partnerships for development.

As the Chairperson of the e-World Wide Group, Salma is also using her vast international experience and contacts to leverage best practices, strategies and partnerships to promote her businesses but also focuses on social economic development. Salma believes that through the creation of business opportunities and Information communication technology development will bridge the digital divide and gender divide in a sustainable practical manner will improve the “quality of life” for marginalized people all over the world. She is also linking ICT companies in developing economies with International corporations and organizations to promote knowledge transfer, skills and product exports to create sustainable growth for the local SME’s thus benefiting local economies which is resulting in sustainable socio-economic development.

She has been actively working to drive interfaith understanding, dialogue, and awareness using ICT’s to bridge the socio-religious gap and promote human security in multi-cultural societies since the early 80’s. Salma is also working with Governments around the world to promote ‘effective’ community cohesion and preventing extremist violence and radicalization.. In addition, Salma works with very closely with the UN and Governments, to develop strategies to implement effective ‘ICT’ policies and initiatives focusing in multiple areas of safety and security along with supporting the elements of the MDG’s. This has resulted in social economic development and security.

Salma established a non-profit organization in California called “Rahima” with Habiba Hussain, concentrating on assisting the integrating refugees into the Bay Area community. Now, she actively works with SAMF, to implement multiple projects focusing on sustainable socio-economic development and Income generation programs for marginalized youth and women, disaster relief, and prevention radicalization and extremism all over UK, Africa and South Asia. The result of this work has positively impacted community cohesion and understanding. She recently launched special initiatives for women’s empowerment through capacity building and financial independence using ICTs. She is also actively involved in community work, focusing on people with special needs, terminally ill, homeless, battered women and children.

Born in UK, she is a graduate from Westminster University London, BSc Civil Engineering, and later moved to California where she completed her MSc in Electrical Engineering. Pursuing her career as a technologist with great interest in social development she is now doing her doctorate at University of London, Royal Holloway College on ‘Understanding Challenges and Barriers for Women’s engagement with ICTs and their impact on social economic development in Muslim societies‘.

Salma has been described as a “visionary leader who executes”. It is her personal goal to make a difference in everything she does, to improve the quality of peoples’ lives all over the world. She continues to spread her positive ideas, energy, experience and understanding, by speaking at conferences all over the world on multiple platforms from sustainable development, gender empowerment, to security and policy review to reach as many people as possible and create a safe space for debate and knowledge creation to support peace, understanding and harmony in the world.

Current Research and Projects:

Supporting the Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) women’s taskforce in the capacity of a strategic advisor and developing strategies to conduct the holistic multidimensional capability and capacity building of women councillors and conducting workshops
Researching Government strategies for gender empowerment in the Gulf countries to assess and develop frameworks for effective engagement of women in Government.
Working on capacity building initiatives in AJK for women and youth to support SME development to drive peace and security in collaboration with the AJK diaspora in the UK.
Working as honorary strategic advisor to the President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) for developing practical strategies and initiatives for using ICTs to support socio economic development.
Creating strategies for implementing sustainable Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCTs) in twelve African countries as pilot projects for ITU to support the inclusion of marginalized communities and socio-economic empowerment.
Researching Madaris (Quranic schools) to refine the strategy for transforming informal education systems with innovation and enhancement to promote interfaith harmony and enable holistic development of the students in Africa and South Asia to promote peace and security.
Developing policy frameworks and awareness campaigns with multiple countries in South Asia, Africa and the Gulf for protecting children from the negative elements of internet.
Researching the effectiveness of the ICT policy formulation processes across South Asia, Africa and the Gulf from the perspective of women’s consideration and inclusion into the knowledge economy.
Conducting field research in Pakistan, AJK and UK to examine and explore the barriers and challenges that women face when engaging with ICTs in Muslim societies.
Researching Muslim women role models that are driving the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism around the world to create and mobilize a network of like-minded women to prevent radicalization and extremist thinking.

Martin Kimani

2009-04-21T05:59:02Z

Martin Kimani served in a senior capacity for an Addis Ababa based regional security program at IGAD, the sub-regional organization of the seven countries in the Horn of Africa, and simultaneously held the position of Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies. Prior to this, he was Teaching Fellow at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College and Head of the Africa Division at Exclusive Analysis Ltd., a provider of political risk analysis and forecasting to Lloyd's of London. For five years, before moving to London, he was an emerging markets currency strategist and assistant vice president at Foreign Exchange Concepts Inc., a New York based fund with $12 billion under management. Martin writes a regular column for The East African, a regional weekly newspaper and is a fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He is completing doctoral work at the Department of War Studies and writes on the role of Catholic Church, Christian symbolism and racialism in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

martin.kimani@gmail.com

David Wybrow-Evans

2009-03-24T09:22:39Z

David holds a BA (Hons) from University of Reading in Film and Theatre and an MA in Human Rights from University of Sussex where he took courses in Refugees and Rights and Rights and Development at the Institute of Development Studies. He joined CSDG in 2007 to work on Youth Exclusion and Vulnerability in sub-Saharan West Africa.

Following several years as a newspaper reporter in London, David worked for UNHCR in Hong Kong during the Vietnamese 'boat people' crisis and then in London for the British Council for Refugees during the early years of the Pinochet regime in Chile. In following years he moved into campaign copywriting, directing theatre and national provision for youth arts and media where he specialised in work with and for young people at risk. He was the founder editor of REACT, the journal of young people, performing arts and media and central to the development of NAYT, the National Association of Youth Theatres.

As a freelancer he worked in Youth arts, professional theatre, film and TV across the UK as well as in the USA, Russia and Greece. He worked with the Arts Council of England to set up apprenticeships in the arts for young people in London. During the 90’s he gained support from the European Social Fund for a London-based vocational media training project for people with disabilities, before becoming director of the Cockpit Theatre in London where he developed a tradition of work with refugee artists from Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

His chief interest is the relationship of culture - small and big C’s – to social change.

davidwybrow@gmail.com

Chris Smith

2009-03-24T09:21:48Z

Dr Chris Smith was the founder-director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group. He also has attachments to the Universities of Bristol and Brighton and is a Research Associate at Chatham House. He now works primarily as a freelance consultant. He has worked on issues relating to conflict, security and development for the past twenty-five years and has a strong background in both development and security studies.

Chris Smith has a private limited UK company, Conflict, Security & Development Partnerships which specialises in the monitoring, evaluation and strategic direction of donor-funded projects and programmes, primarily but not exclusively in South Asia.

chris.smith920@ntlworld.com

Abubakar Momoh

2009-03-24T09:21:05Z

Abubakar Momoh holds a Ph.D. in Political Theory. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Lagos State University. He writes on issues of Pan-Africanism, social movements, democracy and youth. He co-edited "The National Question in Nigeria" (Ashgate, 2002). He has been a Visiting scholar and researcher to many institutions including the University of Helsinki, Finland; the University of Cape Town, South Africa; the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden; and the University of California, Los Angeles.

amomoh2002@yahoo.com

Zeedah Meierhofer-Mangeli

2009-03-24T09:19:57Z

Zeedah Meierhofer-Mangeli is the Executive Director of the Meeting Place and Resource Center for Women in Zurich and former Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika (London and Uganda). Trained in the fields of sociology, pedagogy, and conflict resolution, she has been an educator and a specialist on women’s human rights and race relations. She served as Co-Director of the Zurich Women’s Shelter for Abused Women and Children; and led the youth awareness and civics training for Focus World, Switzerland. In her work, she has also been involved in concept development and training for the Swiss Police on domestic violence.

As a member of the Social Party of Switzerland, she was the first Black woman to contest for Parliament in Switzerland as part of a coalition between SP and FRAP. Zeedah is committed to the education of young girls in Africa. She recently founded the Resource Center for Women and Girls Trust in Kenya, with a flagship programme, the Empowerment Camp for Girls, which became operational in 2007. Her hobby is photography. Her photographs have featured in exhibitions in Switzerland, the UK and at the United Nations in New York. She sits on several boards, including, The African Leadership Institute, Akina Mama wa Afrika, and also the Gender and Equality Commission for the City of Zurich.

zeedah@runbox.com

Robin Luckham

2009-03-24T09:18:41Z

Robin Luckham is a post-retirement Research Associate at IDS with more than forty years experience working on the military, disarmament, democratisation, security and development, mostly in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. He was the founding Chair of the Global Consortium on Security Transformation and previously chaired the international advisory group of the Global Facilitation Network on Security Sector Reform. He has written or edited nine books, including among others The Nigerian Military (1971) and (with Gavin Cawthra) Governing Insecurity (2003), as well as numerous articles.

robin.luckham@zen.co.uk

CSDG Associates

2009-03-19T06:46:57Z