Language: English

Dr. Augustine Magolowondo is a seasoned governance and democracy expert with over 25 years of experience in international development, focusing on elections, political party strengthening, political dialogue, and conflict management across sub-Saharan Africa. Until May 2025, he served as Regional Director and Head of Programmes for Democracy Works Foundation, and as Chief of Party for a USAID-funded regional political parties and elections programme covering seven Southern African countries.

Dr. Magolowondo has provided strategic advisory support to political parties, parliaments, EMBs, and civil society actors. He previously held senior leadership roles with the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), where as African regional representative and Senior Expert (Political Parties and Elections) he provided expert leadership and oversight on initiatives aimed at promoting inter-party dialogue, political parties strengthening and elections.

He has also worked with GIZ in Malawi as an expert on decentralisation, conflict management, and dialogue promotion. He has contributed to seminal tools including the International IDEA/NIMD Facilitators’ Guide for Political Dialogue among others. He holds a PhD in Political Science, an MA in Development Management (from Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany) and BA in Public Administration (University of Malawi). He has published extensively in his field of work.

Andreas Schedler is a Senior Research Fellow at the Democracy Institute of the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest where he leads the Research Group on De- and Re-Democratisation. He is also a Visiting Professor at CEU Vienna. 

Before joining the CEU, Schedler was a Professor of Political Science at the Center for Economic Teaching and Research (CIDE) in Mexico City. A leading comparative scholar of democracy, democratisation, and authoritarianism, he has published numerous articles in scholarly journals including Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Democracy, European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, Journal of Political Philosophy, Political Research Quarterly, and Political Science Quarterly. 

He is also author of “The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral Authoritarianism” (Oxford University Press, 2013) and “In the Fog of War: Citizens and Organized Criminal Violence in Mexico” (CIDE, 2nd ed. 2018, in Spanish). His current research focuses on political polarisation and the destruction of basic democratic trust.

Aries A. Arugay is Professor of Political Science at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Asian Politics & Policy, a Scopus-indexed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell and the Policy Studies Organization and a Visiting Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Philippines Studies Programme of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof-Ishak Institute (Singapore).

He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on comparative politics and international relations. He is one of the first members of the Democracy Erosion Consortium, an global initiative to commonly offer a university-level course on democratic erosion around the world. Since 2024, Arugay is also a member of the Global Challenges to Democracy Working Group established by the Toda Peace Institute.

Arugay has conducted research on democratisation and democratic erosion for the past two decades. His research interests include civil-military relations, populism, polarisation, electoral politics, and foreign policy. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from Georgia State University (United States) in 2014 as a Fulbright Fellow and his MA and BA (cum laude) in Political Science from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.

Dicky Sofjan, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) in the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. His research focuses on religion and politics, Islam, religious literacy and social justice, nature and culture, as well as sustainability and spirituality. He currently serves as  Vice President of Globethics in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Dr. Sofjan has received research grants from the Ford Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Partnership for Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD), Nippon Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, European Union, US State Department, Carnegie Council, Greenpeace, UNDP and other international organisations and development agencies. He was a Visiting Professor and Fellow in Japan, Malaysia, Bulgaria, Italy and Iran. 

Dr. Sofjan’s latest project includes designing and curating an inspirational and sustainable “Nglanggeran Eco-Village” located in Patuk, Gunung Kidul, where he brings together Indonesian social entrepreneurs and green investors to promote sustainable development.. 

Dr. Sofjan serves as ICRS Principal Investigator for a Religious Literacy Project with the Indonesian Institute of Academic Partnership (IIAP) and a Co-Principal Investigator for the Project on Polarization Mitigation through Social and Environmental Justice in Indonesia.

Jestina Mukoko is a distinguished human rights defender, journalist, peace advocate, and civil society leader. She founded the Jestina Mukoko Foundation to provide a sanctuary and platform for those affected by trauma to share their stories as the initial step in their journey of healing and restoration. As former National Director of Zimbabwe Peace Project, a non-profit organisation, She has been dedicated to promoting sustainable peace by tracking and reporting human rights abuses and breaches of peace across Zimbabwe.

 A survivor of state-sponsored violence, Mukoko bravely documented her harrowing experience in her book, The Abduction and Trial of Jestina Mukoko: The Fight for Human Rights in Zimbabwe, published in 2016. 

A political scientist by training, Mukoko holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Defending Human Rights, and an Executive Master’s Degree in Managing Peace and Security in Africa. For her outstanding contributions to democracy, human rights, and peace advocacy, the Institute of Directors Zimbabwe honored her as one of the 50 Inspirational Women of 2020-2021. 

Mukoko has been engaged in work to analyse fault lines impacting cohesion in the opposition in Zimbabwe. She has been a member of the IFIT Zimbabwe Resources Group since its inception in 2016.

Sawsan Abou Zainedin is the Chief Executive Officer of Madaniya, a Syrian-led initiative uniting over 240 civil society organisations to reclaim political agency within Syria’s civic space. Trained as an architect and urban planner, Abou Zainedin brings over a decade of experience in the development sector, applying a multidisciplinary lens to the challenges of the Syrian conflict.

Before leading Madaniya, she worked with a wide range of international and Syrian organisations. She has delivered guest lectures at academic institutions such as UCL, McGill, and the University of Bath, and published research with leading think tanks including Chatham House and Carnegie Middle East Center.

Abou Zainedin is a member of GIZ’s Experts Network on Housing, Land, and Property Rights and IFIT’s Syria Resource Group. She has co-founded several community-based initiatives, including Hooz Centre in Syria and Sakan Housing Communities in the UK.

A Chevening scholar, she holds an MSc in Urban Development Planning from UCL, a postgraduate diploma from Erasmus University, and a degree in architectural engineering from the University of Aleppo. Her work bridges civic leadership, urban justice, and post-conflict recovery.

Sulemana Braimah is the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), West Africa’s most influential freedom of expression advocacy and media development non-profit organisation. He is an experienced, visionary and transformational non-profit leader with over 15 years of experience. He is skilled in non-profit management, building talents, policy analysis, strategic planning and innovation, with extensive networks in Africa and globally. 

Braimah is a 2019 Global Eisenhower Fellow in recognition of his exceptional leadership; and the 2023 recipient of the coveted Eisenhower Fellowships Impact Award, in recognition of the extraordinary impact of The Fourth Estate non-profit journalism project, which he founded in 2021.

 At the regional level, Braimah serves as the Secretary General of the ECOWAS Civil Society Platform on Transparency and Accountability in Governance (ECSOPTAG).

Guillermo Tell Aveledo Coll is a Doctor in Political Science from the Central University of Venezuela. He is Full Professor and Dean of Law and Politics at Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas. 

His academic work focuses on Venezuelan politics, Church-State relations, and extremism in contemporary ideological trends. He is a member of IFIT’s Venezuela Expert Group (GEV), and served as a member of the National Primary Commission (2022–2023), the citizen-led body responsible for organizing the opposition’s leadership primaries in Venezuela. 

His recent publications include “Venezuela: Reconfiguración de la hegemonía” and “Whose right, whose left? The peculiar iterations of right-wing politics in Venezuela” (co-authored with Maryhen Jimenez).

Tessa Dooms is the host of Power Breakfast on Powerfm 987 in South Africa, and the Director at the Rivonia Circle, political think-tank. She recently authored a book titled ‘Coloured’ that explores identity politics in South Africa.

Trained as a Sociologist, development practitioner and political analyst, Ms. Dooms is an activist, author and change maker committed to the remaking of the future of South Africa. She started her career in academia and has worked in diverse sectors including government, NGOs and the private sector, where she did work that aligns the objectives of various institutions and programmes with developmental objectives for the advancement of Africa. She has 15 years’ experience as a development worker, trainer and researcher with expertise on governance, youth development and innovation, and has worked in over 10 African countries. In 2015 she was appointed to the National Planning Commission to advise the President on the implementation of the National Development Plan of South Africa.

Dooms is a Trustee of the Kagiso Trust and holds a Masters of Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Hahrie Han is a professor of Political Science and the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

She is an award-winning author of five books and numerous scholarly articles. Her latest book (Undivided, Knopf 2024) was named to the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2024, and the New Yorker’s list of Recommended Books for 2024. 

She has also written for a wide range of scholarly and public outlets and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was named a 2022 Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year by the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation, and delivered the Tanner Lectures at Harvard University in 2024.