About our speakers
Adebisi Alimi has been involved in LGBT advocacy in Nigeria for over a decade and started 'The Independent Project', now the strongest gay group in Nigeria. He had to flee his home in Nigeria after a BBC World Service interview meant his life was threatened and now works with Naz project in London as the African MSM sexual health worker.
Horace G. Campbell is professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University where he directs the Africa Initiative. Concerned with issues of conflict resolution, he has been an activist and a scholar for over forty years. His most recent book is Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA.
Jali Fily Cissokho, vocalist and kora player, is regarded as one of the great Senegal griots. His UK appearances have included WOMAD, Glastonbury and Larmer Tree and he has recently worked with A R Rahman, composer of the score for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Deborah Doane is director of the World Development Movement an organisation campaigning UK-wide for global justice. She’s on the board of the Fairtrade Foundation and has a long history of campaigning for corporate accountability.
Dele Fatunla is a writer researching diasporas and social movements as well as preparing a biography of the groundbreaking Yoruba Nigerian artist and photographer, Rotimi Fani-Kayode. He is also a member of the Save The Africa Centre campaign team.
Jonathan Glennie is a fellow of the Overseas Development Institute, a regular contributor to the Guardian’s development blog, and author of The Trouble with Aid: Why less could mean more for Africa. He’s previously managed Christian Aid’s Colombia programme.
Firoze Manji, from Kenya, is founder of Fahamu Charitable Trust and editor-in-chief of Pambazuka News, an award winning, open-access, pan-African newsletter for social justice. In the past he has held leadership positions with International Development Research Centre, Aga Khan Foundation and Amnesty International.
Mia Nikasimo is a writer, poet and regular contributor to the blog 'Black Looks'.
Njoki Njoroge Njehu is the executive director of the Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Centre in Kenya, where she works on food sovereignty, climate justice, finance and women’s land rights. She’s a founding member of the international council of the World Social Forum, as well as co-coordinator of Africa Jubilee South, the network of organisations and movements campaigning on debt and development.
Julian Oram is head of campaigns and policy at the WDM. He was previously head of the trade and corporates team at ActionAid UK, and at the New Economics Foundation, developing practical proposals for delivering just and sustainable economie.
Esther Stanford-Xosei is co-vice chair of the Pan-African Reparations Coalition in Europe. She presents a current affairs programme on Voice of Africa Radio, Britain’s African community radio station.
Yash Tandon, from Uganda, is a senior advisor and writer for the South Centre, Geneva, an intergovernmental think-tank of the developing countries of which he was previously the executive director. Professor Tandon's long career has involved him as policymaker, political activist and public intellectual, and his books include Ending Aid Dependence.
Sophi Tranchell is the managing director of Divine, a Fairtrade chocolate company jointly owned by Ghanian cocoa producers’ co-operative Kuapa Kokoo and Twin Trading. Sophi has used Divine's unique farmer-owned business model as a case study to champion and inspire social enterprise.
Murray Worthy is policy officer at the World Development Movement, researching and developing policy across all of WDM’s campaigns. He’s previously worked on policy for health charities and been involved in climate justice activism through Climate Camp.
Chairs
Patricia Daley is a University of Oxford lecturer in human geography whose research interests include refugees and humanitarian assistance; militarism, gender and genocidal violence in Central Africa; and the environmental impact of development.
Sibongile Ndashi works as a lawyer for Interights in London. She develops litigation strategies to protect people discriminated against because of their gender identity and sexual orientation, and also co-represents parties before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Julieanne Porter is an active member of Oxford WDM and regional representative for WDM’s East Anglia and the Chilterns region. She works for part-time for Oxfam and for Barrett’s Lane community garden in Oxford.
Sarah Reader works on WDM’s climate debt campaign and also supports WDM’s network of local groups. She is also involved in anti-arms trade activism through Campaign Against Arms Trade.
Colin Tudge is a writer and broadcaster with a special interest in food and agriculture, natural history, evolution and genetics and philosophy. He is author of Feeding People is Easy, and his new book, Good Food for Everyone Forever: A People's Takeover of the World's Food Supply.
