Founding Members
Dr. Tade Akin Aina
Tade Akin Aina is Executive Director of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR – Kenya). Formerly he was Program Director of Higher Education and Libraries in Africa for the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He studied sociology at the University of Lagos and the London School of Economics and obtained his PhD from the University of Sussex, UK. Dr. Aina was appointed full Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Lagos in 1993.
He served as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Dakar, Senegal- based Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa(CODESRIA) from 1993 to 1998. From 1998 to 2008 he worked in the Nairobi office of the Ford Foundation. He is an author, co-author, Editor and Co-Editor of eleven books and monographs and recently co-edited, with Bhekinkosi Moyo, the volume Giving to Help, Helping to Give: The Context and Politics of African Philanthropy (Amalion, 2013).
Prof. Yahaya Hashim
Yahaya Hashim is a Nigerian Social Entrepreneur. He initially trained at the Zaria Business School where he obtained a BSc and an MBA from the premier University in Northern Nigeria - Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. He later went to the Netherlands to read Development Studies and obtained a Masters and a PhD from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University in The Hague, The Netherlands.
He has worked in different fields ranging from investment analysis to Nigerian and African trade unions. Yahaya Hashim is currently the co-founder and coordinator of a non-profit social enterprise in Kano – dRPC – development Research and Projects Centre. The Centre is dedicated to fighting for social Justice and against marginalization and social exclusion. He was also a co-founder and first Executive Director of the Centre for Research & Documentation in Kano, a pioneering non-profit formed by social movement activists to protect academic freedoms and human rights at the peak of General Abacha’s dictatorship in Nigeria. Dr. Hashim has also taught part time at the Bayero University, done teaching assistance at the ISS in the Hague and at the University of Leiden. He also taught at the Kano Polytechnic and has undertaken research, programming studies, community rapid assessments for International development organizations and International NGOs.
Yahaya Hashim has served as adviser to some civil society organizations and as board member to others as well as a member of steering committees of major national development programs. Since his student union days he has moved to trade union activism, women’s right movement and now to civil society/NGO activism thus linking the old and the new social movements. Yahaya Hashim’s current intervention interest is in the areas of development research, public health especially reproductive health, education, governance, state-society relations and social conflicts.
Dr. Osman Gbla
Dr. Osman Gbla is currently Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. He is also Founder of the Centre for Development and Security Analysis (CEDSA) Sierra Leone and Chairman of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) National Governing Council (NGC) of Sierra Leone. I was also Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, and Head, Department of Political Science , Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.
I hold a Bachelor of Arts (B.A), Master of Science In Economics (M.Sc.Econ) and a Doctor of Philosophy (P.hD) from Fourah bay College, University of Sierra Leone. I also received an Advanced Diploma in International Conflict Resolution from Uppsala University in Sweden. I was a Lead Consultant to many post-war development programmes in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. I was the first Lead Training Facilitator of the Executive Management Course: Managing Peace and Security in Africa (MPSA1) of the University of Addis Ababa and the African Union.
I have over the years individually and collaboratively carried out research and consultancy works in the areas of peace, security and governance in Africa for many multilateral, regional and sub-regional organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), the German International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Department for International Development (DFID). Conference paper presentations were also made in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Austria and in many African countries.
Some of my publications include: Gbla, Osman, 2013, Governance Challenges of Sierra Leone in Cassandra Veney and Dick Simpson, ed, 2013, African Democracy and Development : Challenges for Post-Conflict African Nations ( Lexington Books ); Gbla, Osman, 2013, Security Sector Governance and Conflict in Sierra Leone in Abdul Raufu Mustapaha, ed, 2013,Conflicts and Security in West Africa ( Lagos: Malthouse Press Limited).
Dr. Esi E. Ansah
Dr. Esi Ansah is a founding partner and the current CEO of Axis Human Capital Ltd. She uses Axis as a platform to provide mentoring, career and life coaching to students and young professionals. Esi is a licensed Insights Discovery practitioner who uses the Insights Discovery (personality profile) system in performance, and leadership coaching. Dr. Ansah is also an Assistant Professor at Ashesi University College Esi teaches classes including Leadership, Negotiation and Human Resource Management.
Esi is active in her community and currently serves as the Executive Director of two nonprofit organizations – the Paul A. V. Ansah (PAVA) Memorial Foundation and the Association of Ghana’s Elders (AGE), which she co-founded. Esi is a fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Africa Leadership Initiative - West Africa (ALIWA), and was in July 2015 appointed as a member of the West Africa Board. She was honored by the New York-based The Network Journal (TNJ) as one of the journal’s “Forty under Forty” African Achievers in 2010.
Esi’s academic and professional/career interests include Service Delivery Systems, Service Quality, Human Capital Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Public Sector Reform. She earned her Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology, International Affairs and French from the Florida State University, graduating with three Bachelor’s degrees in three years cum laude (with honors). She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a Master of Science degree in Public Service Management from DePaul University in Chicago. She holds a PhD in Public Administration from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Mr. John Harvey
John Harvey holds more than 20 years’ professional experience in global philanthropy and is a passionate and respected advocate for its advancement. As founding principal of Global Philanthropy Services, John works in partnership with foundations and other philanthropy-focused clients to develop and execute creative, cost-efficient and effective solutions to the challenges they face as advocates for social change. John recently launched the Grantee Experience and Insight Review, a grantee-centered evaluation program for foundations.
Prior, John served as Managing Director for Global Philanthropy at the Council on Foundations, where, among other achievements, he led professional development programming and a successful advocacy effort aimed at simplifying IRS rules on cross-border grantmaking. John served for 10 years as founding Executive Director of Grantmakers Without Borders (now EDGE Funders Alliance), a social justice funders’ network. There, John oversaw the organization’s advancement from start-up to respected leader promoting global social change philanthropy and the practice behind it. John is co-founder of New England International Donors, whose aim is to increase the quantity and quality of global giving originating from New England. John serves on the editorial board of Alliance magazine and writes for this journal on global philanthropy and social investment.
Dr. Seidu Alidu
Dr. Seidu Alidu is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Department of Political Science. He is also an adjunct lecturer at the Centre for Social Policy Studies at the University of Ghana; a Donahue Institute Scholar on United States political thought at the University of Massachusetts in the United States. He has worked closely with and for numerous policy think tanks including the Partnership for African Social Governance and Research based in Nairobi Kenya; Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen based in Netherlands; the Institute for Democratic Governance; the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung; the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, and the German-African Governance Partnership Organization. He has published widely, and presented conference papers on different specialization areas including conflict resolution, democratization and governance, transitional justice, civil society and social policy, as well as human rights.
Dr. Franklin Oduro
Dr. Franklin Oduro has over 15 years of experience in civil society, democracy and governance work in Ghana and in Africa as a whole. Dr. Oduro started his democracy promotion career with the Accra-based Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), a research and policy advocacy center. Dr. Oduro is presently the Head of Research and Programs and Deputy Director at the Center. Dr. Oduro has consulted for the Washington DC-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) on elections; served as NDI’s Senior Resident Program Manager for Nigeria during the 2011 general elections, and again provided technical assistance to the Nigerian civil society group, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), during the 2015 Nigerian election.
Dr. Oduro holds a PhD in political science from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, specializing in comparative politics and public policy analysis. He also has a post-graduate certificate in comparative transitional justice from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Dr. Oduro research interests include civil society and elections (election monitoring and observation), post-transition politics of human rights accountability/transitional justice/truth commission processes, public administration and policy analysis, and African political thought. Dr Oduro has published in the Citizenship Studies, The International Journal of Human Rights, Journal of African Elections, Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice, Journal of Human Rights, and International Journal of Transitional Justice among others.