EXPERT ADVISORY PANEL
GENARO ARRIAGADA
Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees, Universidad de las Américas
As political scientist, he works as a consultant for several international institutions and companies. He has authored several books and academic articles. He served as Ambassador of Chile to the United States (1998-1999) and General Secretary Minister of the Presidency (1994-1996). Fellow of The Wilson Center, Washington D.C. (1978-1979) and of the Institute of Politics, University of Harvard (1989).
Jóhanna Kristín Birnir
Centre for International Development and Conflict Management – Minorities at Risk Project, University of Maryland
Jóhanna Birnir is an Associate Professor in the department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland Jóhanna completed her Ph.D. at the University of California Los Angeles in 2001. Her research is in the field of Comparative Politics. Broadly speaking, she focuses on political developments in new democracies in Latin America and Eastern Europe with a special emphasis on ethnic politics and conflict. Jóhanna is also a research fellow at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and the Center for international Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) where she is involved in the improvement of the MAR data-set and merger of MAR and the new MAROB data (OB for Organizational Behavior). She is the author of Ethnicity and Electoral Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and her papers are published in the American Journal of Political Science, Latin American Research Review, Comparative Political Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, and other professional journals. Her work is currently funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security.
Sean C. Carroll
Former Chief of Staff for USAID.
Sean C. Carroll is Senior Director at Creative Associates, an international development company. Prior to joining Creative in October 2012, he served in the Obama Administration as Chief of Staff, and then Chief Operating Officer, for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010-2012. Carroll was Director of Programs for the Club of Madrid, 2004-2010. He built a portfolio of programs, and a program team, from scratch into a two million euros per annum program with a staff of 10 people, managing several projects around the world. He worked directly with more than half of the organization’s members. Outside the office, Carroll coordinated Obama for America efforts in Spain. Prior to his time in Madrid, Carroll was Senior Fellow and Director at the Washington, DC-based Inter-American Dialogue where he worked with the U.S. Congress and legislators throughout the Americas. Carroll also served as a Consultant to United Nations/World Food Program and as Professional Staff Member on the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee. From 1986 to 1999, Carroll worked in multiple roles at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, including Executive Officer and Chief of Mission for the West Bank & Gaza. He has an MA in International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University/SAIS and a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish, and speaks Catalan and French.
William Easterly
Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. Fellow of the Centre for Global Development.
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He is also a Fellow of the Centre for Global Development. Easterly received his Ph.D. in Economics at MIT. He was a Research Economist at the World Bank, and is the author and co-editor of a number of books in addition to having published 48 journal articles. Easterly’s areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of foreign aid. Easterly is an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economic Growth, and of the Journal of Development Economics.
Mounira Fakhro
Associate Professor at the University of Bahrain.
Dr Fakhro is Associate Professor at the University of Bahrain, having received her Doctorate in Social Policy, Planning and Administration from Columbia University She has served as a visiting scholar at Columbia University since 1997, as well as having conducted research on gender, citizenship and civil society in the Gulf States at Harvard University. She has published works on Bahrain and is currently a Board member of the Bahrain Academic Society and the Supreme Council for Women. She was a member of the Advisory Board for the Arab Human Development Report 2004. Dr Fakhro was appointed by the King’s wife, Sheikha Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, to the Advisory Board of the Supreme Council for Women.
Mari Fitzduff
Professor and Director of the Master’s Program in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis College.
Mari Fitzduff is currently the Director and Professor of the Master’s Program in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis College. Previously she was Professor of Conflict Studies, and Director of United Nations University/International Conflict Research From 1990 – 1997 she was the Founding Director of the Community Relations Council, in Northern Ireland. Fitzduff has also worked as a program consultant on projects addressing conflict in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Basque country, Peru, and Indonesia. She has also produced a major 10 part documentary called ‘Waging Peace’ as well as numerous written publications.
Yash Pal Ghai
Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong.
Yash Ghai is professor of public law at the University of Hong Kong. Educated at Oxford and Harvard, he has served as an advocate of the High Court of Tanzania. His primary interests now are constitutions arising out of conflict and political and constitutional issues of autonomy in the context of Greater China. Some of his principal writings have been published in non-legal journals. He has consulted for a number of countries, including Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Seychelles, Afghanistan, Maldives, Cambodia, and East Timor. He chaired Kenya’s constitutional review from 2001-04 and is currently an advisor to the Constitution Committee of the National Assembly of Iraq. He facilitated various consultations in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, and advised the Tibetan Government in Exile. In September 2006, he became UN Special Representative for human rights to Cambodia.
Ashraf Ghani
The Institute for State Effectiveness, Chairman.
Dr. Ashraf Ghani co-founded The Institute for State Effectiveness in 2005. As chief adviser to President Karzai during the Interim Administration and as Finance Minister for the Transitional Administration, Dr. Ghani is widely credited with the design of Afghanistan’s integrated political, economic and security strategy between 2001 and 2005. He also lent his expertise as a United Nations adviser to the process that led to the Bonn Agreement, the National Development Framework, the ‘Securing Afghanistan’s Future’ exercise and the design of the Afghanistan Compact.
Ted Robert Gurr
Professor Emeritus, Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland, Former Director of the Minorities at Risk Project.
Dr. Ted Gurr has a BA in social psychology from Reed College and a Ph.D. in government and international relations from New York University. His principle writings are on ethno-politics. Professor Gurr was president of the International Studies Association. Since 1994 he has been a senior consultant on the White House-initiated State Failure Task Force and a member of the steering committee of the Conflict Early Warning Systems Research Program of the International Social Science Council (UNESCO). He is founder and director of the Minorities at Risk project, based at Maryland’s Centre for International Development and Conflict Management.
Fikria Harrouch
UNESCO Youth Forum 2005 Representative, The Netherlands.
Fikria Harrouch holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of Rotterdam. She was the 2005 UNESCO Youth Forum representative for the Netherlands and the elected rapporteur of the Forum. She has continued her work on the Forum’s theme, “Young People and the Dialogue Among Civilizations, Cultures and Peoples” in the Netherlands by creating a project for intercultural dialogue in secondary schools and is currently coordinating a multicultural group of young volunteers to provide education on Female Genital Mutilation.
Steen L. Jorgensen
Director, Human Development Middle East and North Africa Region, The World Bank.
Steen Lau Jorgensen is Sector Director, Human Development Middle East and North Africa Region. Previously at the World Bank he has worked: in the labor markets division of the development research department; urban development group; was appointed country economist and country officer for Bolivia; Southern Africa human development group; as acting chief administrative officer and change management advisor in the office of the vice president for the Africa region; was appointed assistant to the managing directors for operations; for the social protection team in the human development network, and served as sector manager and alternate sector board chair. Mr. Jorgensen holds the equivalent of a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Prior to working at the World Bank, he taught Microeconomics at the University of Aarhus and consulted inter alia in Czechoslovakia for the Ministry of Agriculture.
Will Kymlicka
Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University.
Currently Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University, Dr. Will Kymlicka received his B.A. in philosophy and politics from Queen’s University in 1984, and his Doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University in 1987. He is the author of six books He is also the editor of The Rights of Minority Cultures (OUP 1995), and co-editor of Ethnicity and Group Rights (NYU 1997) and Multiculturalism in Asia (2005). His research interests focus on issues of democracy and diversity, and in particular the rights and status of ethno cultural minorities within liberal democratic theory and practice. His works have been translated into 30 languages. From 2004-6, he was the President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.
Amin Maalouf
Writer, Lebanon/France.
Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese author. He writes in French, and his works have been translated into many languages. He received the Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel Rock of Tanios. He studied sociology at the French University in Beirut.He worked as the former director of the Beirut daily an-Nahar in Beirut until the start of the civil war in 1975, when he moved to Paris as a refugee. He still lives there today. Maalouf’s novels are marked by his experiences of civil war and migration. Their characters are itinerants, voyagers between lands, languages, and religions.
Clem McCartney
Shared Societies Project Content Coordinator.
Dr. Clem McCartney is an independent research consultant on conflict and community issues. He is an associate of the Berghof Foundation for Peace Support and has contributed to a number of Berghof publications including the “Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation”, and one of its Dialogue Series on Security Sector Reform. He is also an associate of Conciliation Resources in London and has been consultant to their Comparative Learning Project, working in Colombia and the Philippines, and their Caucasus Programme. He works with Quaker Peace and Social Witness in its activities in South Asia. Until 1992 he worked for the Center of Study of Conflict and has undertaken projects for INCORE at the University of Ulster.
Sarifa Moola
Social Activist, South Africa.
Sarifa Moola trained a group of young ambassadors to engage with visitors to the ZeroCarbonCity exhibition-an innovative multi-pronged, global project that aims at reframing the international climate change debate by exploring the energy challenges facing the world’s greatest cities Moola has also coordinated a programme of creative expression around these issues involving poetry and graffiti. In 2007, Moola played the role of “facilitator” in the International Writers Festival, organized by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal).
Ernesto Ottone
Director Catedra Globalización y Democracia, University Diego Portales, Chile. Former ECLAC Deputy Executive Secretary, Member of the Club de Madrid Advisory Committee.
Dr. Ernesto Ottone is currently Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). From 2000-2006, he was Senior Adviser to President Ricardo Lagos and Director of Strategic Analysis of the Office of the President of the Republic of Chile. He has worked for more than twenty years in international organizations like ECLAC and UNESCO. Professor for a variety of Masters and Doctorate courses in Latin American universities and at the Inter-American Human Rights Institute (IIDH) in Costa Rica, Mr. Ottone studied sociology at the Catholic University of Valparaiso and holds a PhD in political science from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III.
John Packer
Human Rights Centre, University of Essex.
Dr. John Packer is Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. He is a frequent consultant advising a number of governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations. He served as Coordinator of the “Initiative on Conflict Prevention through Quiet Diplomacy” and remains a Senior Adviser to the Initiative. He has also served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Tufts and Harvard University, Director of the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe , Senior Legal Advisor to the HCNM, Human Rights Officer at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, consultant for the International Labour Organisation and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Prof. Packer is Associate Editor of the Human Rights Law Journal and a member of the editorial boards and editorial advisory boards for a number of international journals.
Bhikhu Parekh
Centennial Professor in the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics.
Educated at the Universities of Bombay and London, Lord Bhikhu Parekh is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Academy of the Learned Societies for Social Sciences and a Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Westminster. Lord Parekh was chair of the Runnymede Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (1998-2000). He is vice-chairman of the Gandhi Foundation, a trustee of the Anne Frank Educational Trust, the Runnymede Trust, the Institute of Public Policy Research and a member of the National Commission on Equal Opportunity. Professor Parekh is the author of a number of books, is emeritus professor of political theory at the University of Hull and has held visiting professorships at many other universities. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Baroda from 1981-84. Professor Parekh was elected British Asian of the Year in 1992, was awarded the BBC’s prestigious Special Lifetime Achievement Award for Asians in November 1999 and was appointed to the House of Lords in March 2000.
David L. Philips
Board of The Abraham Fund, Columbia University.
Mr. David L. Philips is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Human Rights. He is also the Executive Director, for the International Conflict Resolution Program/SIPA at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs. He’s been a director for the Project on Failed State at the. National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Executive Director at the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and Visiting Scholar, Harvard University’s Center for Middle East Studies.
Timothy Phillips
Co-Founder of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, Harvard University.
Mr. Timothy Phillips is a founding co-chair of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition of Harvard University. He has served as a consultant to non-governmental and governmental organizations in the United States and abroad, including the US State Department and the Council of Europe, on democratization, conflict resolution and human rights initiatives. Mr. Phillips is a member of the Board of Directors and Advisors of the Foundation for a Civil Society, the University of the Middle East, the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University, and the Coexistence Initiative. He served as an advisor to the Government of Sri Lanka in the design and implementation of its peace process and has worked closely with leaders in several countries on conflict resolution and reconciliation initiatives.
Ibrahim Rasool
Member of Parliament of South Africa and Founder of the World for All Foundation.
Mr. Ebrahim Rasool was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 15 July 1962. After the first democratic election in 1994, Mr. Ebrahim Rasool served as a Member of the Executive Council of the Western Cape Legislature. In 1998, he was elected chairperson of the ANC in the Western Cape, a position he held until June 2005. During this time he led the ANC as the Official Opposition from 1998, becoming part of a Coalition Government in 2001 and assuming Government in 2004. In 1998, he served on the National Executive Committee of the ANC. He served in Government in a number of portfolios:
– 1994-1998 Provincial Minister of Health and Social Services
– 2001–2004 Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Development
– 2004 – Appointed by President Thabo Mbeki as the Premier of the Western Cape
In all the portfolios he served, his tenure was characterized by driving transformation and innovation in Government and his period as Premier was characterized by the fastest growing economy in the country, major investment drives and a campaign to unite the people of the Province towards a vision of a Home for All.
Awards received by Ebrahim Rasool include the 1996 Kaizer Foundation International Award for Health and Human Rights and Britain’s Financial Times 2005 Award for Foreign Direct Investment ‘Personality of the Year: Africa’ for his successful efforts in attracting investment to the region, improving the Provincial business environment and raising its international profile.
Mr. Ebrahim Rasool was the Special Advisor to the President of the Republic of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe. He is currently Member of the Parliament of South Africa and Founder of the World for All Foundation.
Necla Tschirgi
Senior Researcher, Former Senior Policy Advisor/Consultant, UN Peacebuilding Support Office.
Dr. Necla Tschirgi has held many positions in the areas of research, policy analysis, teaching, research management and grant making She was Senior Policy Advisor/Consultant in the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (2007-2009), Independent Researcher/Consultant, at The Ford Foundation (2006); Vice President, International Peace Academy (IPA), (2001–2005); Director, Security-Development Nexus Research Program (2003-2006); Team Leader and Senior Specialist of the Peacebuilding and Reconstruction Program Initiative at the International Development Research Centre (1997- 2001); Senior Program Officer of the Social Sciences Division, at the International Development Research Centre (1992- 1997); Middle East Research Competition (MERC), at the Ford Foundation (1986-1991); and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, American University in Cairo, Egypt (1985-1991). Dr. Tschirgi’s current research interests lie at the intersection of development and security. Her most recent publication is “Security & Development: Searching for Critical Connections” edited with Michael S. Lund and Francesco Mancini (Lynne Rienner Publications, 2010.
Fernand de Varennes
Visiting Professor at the Université catholique de Lyon (France) and of the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia-Hercegovina)
Dr Fernand de Varennes is Visiting Professor at the Université catholique de Lyon (France) and of the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia-Hercegovina). He held between August 2017 and November 2024 the mandate of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues. He sits on the advisory boards of research or civil society organisations such as the Club de Madrid, the International Communities Organisation and the European Centre on Minority Issues. He is renown as one of the world’s leading experts on the international human rights of minorities and the prevention of ethnic conflicts. He has also been awarded prizes for his work and commitment to human rights and the protection of minorities, including the 2021 FUEN Prize (Germany), the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2017), the 2004 Linguapax Award (Barcelona, Spain), was nominated in 2004 for the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights (Gwangju, South Korea), and the 2000 Tip O’Neill Peace Fellowship (Northern Ireland, UK). As a researcher and writer, he has some 300 publications worldwide in more than 30 languages.
Ashutosh Varshney
Visiting Professor of Political Science at Brown University.
Ashutosh Varshney is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan Previously, he worked as an assistant and associate professor of government at Harvard University, among others. His most recent work Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Yale University Press, 2002 and 2003) won the Gregory Luebbert Prize of the American Political Science Association for the best book in comparative politics in 2002, was Choice magazine’s “outstanding academic title”, and a Kiriyama Prize “Notable”. His current project is on cities and ethnic conflict, and the politics of economic reforms in India. He has served on the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Millennium Task Force on Poverty; the South Asia Task Force of the Council on Foreign Relations; and the Advisory Board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a consultant to the World Bank, and has also been a consultant to the United Nations Development Program, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and UK Department for International Development.
Sergei Zelenev
Interim Director UN-INSTRAW. Former Chief, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Social Integration Branch.
Dr. Sergei Zelenev has been recently appointed as interim Director of the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women. Before he was the Chief of the Social Integration Branch in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA). He was responsible for overseeing the conceptualization, research and production of UN/DESA publications on ageing, youth, family and inclusive policy issues. Personal research interests include social protection, social inclusion, youth and ageing in various countries. He contributed to drafting some key UN policy documents on ageing and on youth, including ‘Political Declaration and Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing’ and on ‘Supplement to the World Programme of Action on Youth’, as well as follow up reports on the above issues submitted to intergovernmental bodies. He is the author of a book and many articles on economic and social development, published in Russian and English.
Daniel de Torres
International expert on diversity and multiculturalism policies.
Daniel de Torres is an international expert on diversity and multiculturalism policies for Local Governments and International Organizations such as the Council of Europe or the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI). From 2007-2011, he was the Commissioner on Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue of the City of Barcelona promoting public policies including an innovative approach of consensus, mainstreaming and networking recognized as good practices at the global level. Previously he served as advisor of the Mayor of Barcelona and the Committee on Education, Culture and Social Welfare on innovative policies for social cohesion. Daniel is currently Director of the “Spanish Network of Intercultural Cities” (RECI) linked to the European Network of Intercultural Cities promoted by the Council of Europe as well as Director of the project “Anti-rumours”, which is aimed to prevent racism attitudes and prejudices, funded by the Open Society Foundation and led by the ACSAR Foundation. He holds a degree in Economics at the University of Barcelona (UB) and he also pursued postgraduate training on Intercultural and Education (UB) and European and International Studies at the Birkbeck College, University of London.
